


From the Ashes

by NinjaPuppy



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Prim-centric, Seventy-fifth Hunger Games, alternate Catching Fire
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-04-12 15:52:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4485583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinjaPuppy/pseuds/NinjaPuppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tributes for the third Quarter Quell will be reaped from the eligible family members of the victors. The only eligible girl related to a victor in District 12 is Katniss's sister, Prim, so Prim will be a tribute in the seventy-fifth Hunger Games, and Katniss will have to mentor her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prim

From the Ashes

 

Part One

The Ashes

 

Chapter One

Prim

 

Ripper is in the stocks again, and shards of green glass are sprayed across the ground at the foot of the whipping post. I notice this all as soon as I enter the square, but my eyes are drawn to the nasty cut above Ripper's left eye. The bleeding has slowed, but the side of her face is streaked with dried blood. I cross the square casually, and as I pass the stocks, I murmur to Ripper out of the corner of my mouth, "Come by when you get out. I'll give you something for that."

 

She manages a smile for me. "You do your mother proud, Prim."

 

I walk on—not a good idea to linger chatting with someone in the stocks—but I hold my head a little higher.

 

I crouch down at the whipping post and pick up the largest piece of glass. It's curved, thicker on one side. Someone must have thrown a bottle at Ripper.

 

"Hey. What are you doing there?"

 

I leap to my feet at the hoarse shout, my hand curling automatically around the glass. Pain slices into my fingers, but I don't uncurl them as our new head peacekeeper, Thread, strides across the square, glowering at me.

 

"Yeah, you." He points at me. "What are you doing?"

 

I have an answer for this. I do. Katniss would never forgive me if I got arrested for something so stupid. But the shock of Thread coming at me like this—the height and breadth of him, the whip in his hand, the rifle on his hip—stuns me. Does he recognize me as Katniss's sister? Would he arrest me just to show her he can get her? Would he whip me? I've seen so many people on our kitchen table in these past months, their backs striped, raw and bloody, with lash marks. I won't be able to take it. I just know I won't. I'll die. And Katniss will have to watch. And then she'll do something stupid. And then—

 

"Don't just stand there gaping. What are you doing?"

 

Calm, Prim. Calm. You have an answer for this. "I'm— It's a project for school. Picking up trash to keep the district clean. We want to look good when the cameras come for reaping day. Keep up the good press."

 

Thread harumphs. "Just stay out of my way."

 

I nod and scurry across the square to the bakery before he can change his mind. I duck inside and press my back against the door, breathing hard. I look down at my hand. Threads of blood are running between my fingers. I slip the broken shard of bottle into my pocket, then look up to find Peeta watching me from behind the counter.

 

"Prim, are you all right?" he asks.

 

"Oh, hello, Peeta," I say brightly. "I didn't know you were here today."

 

"Just helping out with some cakes," he says. "You're bleeding."

 

"I'm fine."

 

"Come here. I'll get some bandages."

 

While Peeta bandages my hand and asks what I was doing out in the square anyway, I admire the beautiful cakes displayed in the window and under the new glass counter. There's a round one right in front that is painted with a delicate orange flower just opening its petals. The square cake next to it is iced like deep twilight, royal blue with lilac clouds and specks of silver like a smattering of stars. A small white cake is ringed with fresh strawberries. I wonder where he got them. Katniss hasn't been in the woods again, has she? No, she couldn't have. Another cake is a flame, a blue-white core along the very bottom edge of the cake, the color rising up the side of the cake from yellow to orange to red and then to tongues of smoky black icing reaching over and across the top of the cake, crossing and intersecting into what is clearly a pair of hands. It is incredible, and it shakes me to my bones.

 

"Are you sure you're all right, Prim?" Peeta asks.

 

"Yes. I'm fine. Really. These cakes are really beautiful." I hesitate, but we have the money. I've spent most of my life looking into this shop at these cakes. I know other people need the money more than us. I know it's frivolous. But I can't resist. I think about getting the flame cake—it's incredible—but that might upset Katniss. And I haven't been able to stomach berries for months now. "Can I buy that one?" I ask, indicating the cake with the just-opening flower.

 

"You can have it," Peeta says. He slides the cake into a box, and when I lay money on the counter, he pushes it back at me with the cake box. "No, you don't have to pay here, Prim."

 

"Peeta, we can—"

 

"Just let me come over tonight," he says.

 

"All right," I say. I get the feeling that Peeta gets lonely, all by himself in that big house. "You heard about the mandatory programming, right?"

 

"Yep. They told you at school? Did they say what it was?"

 

"No. But I think it's Katniss in her wedding gowns." I understand why Katniss doesn't want the wedding—I even understand why she doesn't really know how she feels about Peeta—but he really is a nice boy, and the wedding gowns are beautiful. And someone should be excited about the whole thing.

 

"But they just took the pictures yesterday," Peeta says.

 

"Well, we'll see." I tuck the cake box under my arm, wave to him, and head back out into the square.

 

It's one of the first really warm days this spring, and I can feel the sunlight touching my hair, lifting my head high. Despite the stocks—now empty—and the whipping post, despite the peacekeepers on the roof of the justice building with guns and the nervous rush of everyone in the streets, I feel hopeful as I walk the road from the square to the Victor's Village.

 

My mother has already treated Ripper's eye by the time I get home, so I leave the cake in the pantry and tell her I'm going outside to do my homework since the weather's so fine.

 

I do go outside, but I don't do my homework. Instead, I cross the green in the center of the Victor's Village, check that no one is watching me, and slip into the unused house across from ours. My house. It is filled with all the things I have built since the last Hunger Games.

 

They built the Victors' Village after the Dark Days, almost seventy-five years ago. A dozen grand houses surround a neat green, but District 12 has only three victors. Until last year, Haymitch was the only victor. Now, my mother and I live in one house with Katniss, and Peeta lives by himself in a third. There are nine empty houses. Well, eight empty houses now.

 

Last reaping day, my name was drawn. I was one slip in thousands, and I was drawn. Katniss had done everything to make sure I was as safe as I could be. And yet Effie Trinket drew that piece of paper and read out my name—"Primrose Everdeen!"—in a bright voice. I walked up to the stage, but then Katniss was there, pushing me back, shielding me again, stepping forward herself to take my place, offering herself to die instead of me.

 

If I had gone to the Hunger Games, I wouldn't have made it. It's that simple. On that day, I was every bit the fragile little girl Katniss saw me as. But my sister volunteered to fight to the death instead of me, leaving me behind to watch on television, knowing every moment that if she died, it was for me, and I would have to live with that. I found strength in myself I didn't know I had. I became stone, solid, a rock my mother could cling to, a rock I could cling to myself.

 

Katniss won the Games with Peeta—an incredible feat, because the rules only allowed one victor—and they both came home. I wanted things to go back to normal so badly, but Katniss had been a tribute in the Hunger Games. She had survived. I had watched her survive and held myself and my mother together. None of us could go back to who we were before my name came out of the reaping ball. But Katniss doesn't see that I changed.

 

I don't blame her for that. Even though I watched every minute of the Games on the television, I cannot imagine what it was like for Katniss and Peeta to live through it, just as Katniss cannot imagine what it was like to watch.

 

The foyer of my house is cluttered with the abandoned things Effie Trinket sent for Katniss to try to find her talent after the Games. Katniss wasn't good at any of them—or maybe she didn't care about trying—so she passed it on to me. I was good at playing the flute, embroidery, gardening, but they weren't my own. I needed something my own.

 

I navigate between the empty flower pots and the music stand, stepping over the box of paints and the scattering of fabric, needles, and thread—I dropped that box when I was moving it in here. I keep telling myself I'll clean this up, but I am too consumed with my projects in the living room.

 

A mobile of paper stars hangs from the ceiling. Miniature trees carved from twigs and pine cones line one of the windows. I've woven baskets and hats from straw and dried flowers. I've folded old newspapers into birds and boats. I have used everything I can get my hands on to build. Some of it is useful. Some of it is pretty. I've taught myself to use tools to cut and whittle wood. I can mend leaky buckets or pots. I can fit broken pieces back together and glue them into place. In some ways, it's like the healing I'm learning from my mother. I learn how something works, and then I can fix it. But it's also more than that. I take broken things, things no one wants anymore, trash, and I reshape it into something new.

 

On the table in the center of the living room is my biggest project ever. I am building a city. Not a model of District 12 or the Capitol. A new city. Buildings made of painted bakery boxes with cut-out windows and doors span the banks of a river—painted blue stones. There are pretty parks with cardboard benches for people to sit and slides made from toothpicks and halves of the handle of a broken plastic bucket I found outside the hob before it burned. There are shining towers of tins from the last parcel day. Grass and trees—dried dandelions and herbs I gathered from the meadow before they turned the fence on full-time. I pull the curved bit of glass I picked up in the square this afternoon from my pocket, careful not to cut myself again. It fits perfectly into one of the window holes in the building on the end of the river, as I knew it would.

 

I contemplate my city for a moment. Then I collect my paper boats and arrange them on the river. I go back out into the foyer and collect the needle, thread, and fabric. On a balcony overlooking the main town square, I construct a clothesline from the needles and thread. Then I cut fabric into tiny shirts and skirts and pants and tie them to the line. I cut more fabric into curtains and glue them into windows, adding some color to the streets. I like it. What else can I do?

 

I need a bridge over the river, I realize. I don't want my city to become divided.

 

I get to work.

 

#

 

Peeta comes over after dinner. We sit on the couch with cake on plates in our laps, and my mother turns on the television for the mandatory programming.

 

Caesar Flickerman stands in front of the Training Center. This year, his hair and eyelids are dyed lavender, and he's shouting to the crowd packed into the circle. "So much to plan! So much to plan! The cake! The flowers! The bridesmaids! Tonight, we begin, with the dresses!"

 

"I was right," I say.

 

"You know," my mother says to Peeta, "it's unlucky to see a bride in her dress before the wedding."

 

Katniss purses her lips, but I read the retort she's biting back. She isn't going to marry Peeta. She isn't going to be a bride.

 

"It's mandatory programming," I say. "He has to watch it." But this is going to get awkward.

 

"You've seen them!" Caesar booms. "You've voted on them!"

 

Peeta levers himself to his feet. "Maybe I should just go—"

 

"No, stay," I say quickly. "Katniss, can I be your bridesmaid?" It's something the old Prim would ask, something she would be excited about too. And maybe I am a little excited. A wedding, pretty dresses and cakes and all that Capital food. But I know what Katniss's marriage to Peeta really means, and I've seen too many whipped backs in the last months to be really excited. Still, I say it, and Katniss's face softens the way it only softens for me.

 

"Course you'll be my bridesmaid," she says. "Who else would it be, dummy?"

 

"I don't know. Madge, maybe. Or someone from the Capitol."

 

"Pfft. You'll be bridesmaid. Madge too, maybe. And Posy will be flower girl. And—" She glances over at Peeta and stops talking.

 

"Look, it's Cinna," Peeta says, drawing our attention back to the screen. Caesar Flickerman has just introduced Katniss's stylist, Cinna. Cinna is a big part of the reason Katniss won the Games last year. Even Katniss admits it. His flaming costumes made such a splash in the pre-Games parade and interviews that Katniss got noticed by sponsors. And he became a star in the Capitol, but that doesn't matter as much to me.

 

Cinna and Caesar chat for a minute about Cinna's costumes for last year's Games, if he has any plans for this year's tributes from 12—he says he's still thinking about it—and then, they direct our attention to a huge screen behind them.

 

"Here we go," Katniss mutters.

 

The special takes us through the whole process of choosing Katniss's wedding dress so far, a process we didn't even know was happening. Apparently, Cinna designed twenty-four wedding gowns. The Capitol citizens voted on their favorites, and the top six dresses were made. Accessories were chosen. Then, yesterday, they took shots of Katniss in each of the six gowns. I came home from school in time to see her in the last two gowns, but they are all stunning. Almost too stunning. Beside me, my mother takes my hand and squeezes it. I squeeze her hand back.

 

"You're so beautiful," I say to Katniss. And you're safe. The fist that has been clenched at my back ever since President Snow's visit before the Victorz Tour, ever since the end of the Games, really, when Katniss tricked the Capitol into letting two victors be crowned, loosens. Surely, if they were going to kill her, they wouldn't spend all this time and money on her.

 

The special ends with Caesar Flickerman reminding the Capitol citizens to vote for their favorite dresses before noon tomorrow. "Let's get Katniss Everdeen to her wedding in style!"

 

Katniss reaches to turn the television off.

 

"And don't forget," Caesar says, "stay tuned for the next exciting event of the evening!"

 

Katniss sits back on the couch. Peeta cuts me another piece of cake without me asking. It is delicious. I'm sure no Capitol cake can be as good as Peeta's.

 

"That's right," Caesar says on the television, "this year will be the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games, and that means it's time for our third Quarter Quell!"

 

The whole room goes still. I lower my forkful of cake back to the plate. "What will they do?" I ask. "It isn't for months yet."

 

"It must be the reading of the card," our mother says quietly. Her eyes are distant and very sad.

 

The anthem plays, and President Snow walks onto the stage followed by a young boy holding a wooden box. The anthem ends, and President Snow launches into the usual speech about the Dark Days, the war, the Treaty of Treason, and the Hunger Games that brought peace. When the laws for the Hunger Games were written, they called for a Quarter Quell every twenty-five years after the end of the Dark Days, a glorified—twisted—version of the Games. "To keep fresh the memory of those killed by the districts' rebellion," President Snow says.

 

I remember the morning Katniss left on the Victory Tour, lying on my bedroom floor above the study, listening at the air vent to the president threatening my sister. Her trick with the berries, he said, was not seen as a desperate act of love by the people in the districts. They saw it as rebellion, and since then, from what I've gathered listening to Katniss talk to Peeta and Haymitch, many of the other districts are rebelling right now, as President Snow speaks.

 

I feel like something huge and dark is closing in on me.

 

"Why don't you just kill me now?" Katniss asked Snow that morning.

 

"Publicly? That would only add fuel to the flames."

 

"Arrange an accident, then."

 

"Who would buy it? Not you, if you were watching."

 

"Then just tell me what you want me to do. I'll do it."

 

"If only it were that simple," he said.

 

How can I think this is over? How can I think she's safe when the districts are rebelling?

 

President Snow is still talking on the television. "On the twenty-fifth anniversary," he says, "as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it."

 

I shudder at the very thought. How could you choose the children you were going to send off to fight to the death?

 

"On the fiftieth anniversary," President Snow continues, "as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes."

 

"Wasn't that the year Haymitch won?" Peeta asks.

 

"I had a friend who went that year," my mother says. "Maysilee Donner. Her parents owned the sweetshop. They gave me her songbird after. A canary."

 

Katniss and I both turn to look at her. I had no idea. She never said. But I don't have anything to say about it now. My stomach is tying itself into knots of worry over what President Snow will do to Katniss.

 

"And now we honor our third Quarter Quell," President Snow says.

 

"What will they do?" Peeta whispers. He and Katniss will have to mentor the tributes this year. If President Snow doesn't have Katniss killed, what will she face?

 

The little boy opens the lid of the box and offers it to President Snow. Inside, we can see rows of yellowish envelopes, enough for centuries of Hunger Games. President Snow removes an envelope with a large 75 on it.

 

He slits it open, pulls out a card, and reads in a strong, ringing voice: "War does not only attack those who stand up and fight. It comes into our homes and takes away what we fight for. So as a reminder of the price of war and that even the strongest among us cannot protect their loved ones, the tributes for the seventy-fifth Hunger Games will be reaped from the eligible family members of the past victors."

 

Eligible family members of past victors? "What does that mean?" I don't realize I've spoken the question aloud until I hear my own voice. And that's when it starts to sink in.

 

As clear as if I am standing in the square right now, I remember Effie Trinket drawing that slip of paper from the reaping ball and crying, "Primrose Everdeen!" into the silence. And just as it did then, my blood goes icy. I tremble all over.

 

The tributes will be reaped from the eligible family members of the past victors.

 

Peeta doesn't have any sisters.

 

I am stone, I tell myself. I am stone. But I am cracking.


	2. Katniss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss deals with the announcement of the Quarter Quell.

Chapter Two

Katniss

 

"War does not only attack those who stand up and fight. It comes into our homes and takes away what we fight for. So as a reminder of the price of war and that even the strongest among us cannot protect their loved ones, the tributes for the seventy-fifth Hunger Games will be reaped from the eligible family members of the past victors."

 

I can feel Prim tremble beside me, and my body reacts before my mind has fully comprehended what Snow has said. I am on my feet, pulling Prim up with me. Her plate of cake clatters to the floor. I hold her to me as tight as I can. "It's all right. It's going to be all right. They're not taking you. I won't let them."

 

"Katniss," Peeta says.

 

I ignore him and hustle Prim around the couch. I reach over her head, grab her coat, and wrap it around her, zipping it up before she's managed to get her arms in. "Mom, get all the food from the pantry."

 

"What?"

 

"Pack it in a bag. We're going. Now."

 

"Katniss, you can't run from this," Peeta says.

 

My mother is still standing there, uncomprehending.

 

"Mom, the food!" I shout. "All of it! We have to go!"

 

"But—"

 

"The fence?" Prim whispers. She's shaking even harder now.

 

"We'll find a way over."

 

"Katniss, we can't. They'll hunt us down. They'll—"

 

Distantly, I'm touched that Peeta wants to come on this crazy venture, but we don't have time. We just don't have time. "They're not putting her in the arena!" I scream. "She'll die! They can kill me if they want! But they aren't taking her!"

 

"Katniss," Prim says.

 

"You'll be all right," I say. I gentle my voice, trying to reassure her, but it wobbles and cracks. I pull her close again and stroke her hair. "We'll run away. I'll keep you safe." It's why I went to the Games in the first place. To protect Prim. If she is a Tribute in this year's Games, even as her mentor, I won't be able to save her. I will do anything to save her.

 

"Okay," Peeta says. His voice is steady. "Okay, Katniss. We're with you. What's the plan?"

 

At Peeta's reasonable words, my mother snaps into action. She rushes towards the pantry, calling over her shoulder for blankets and medical supplies.

 

"I'll go into town," Peeta says. "I need to get my family."

 

"I'll go with you," I say. "I need to get Gale and his family too. Some things from our old house too."

 

"Katniss," Prim says again.

 

"It's okay, Prim. We'll be right back. You and Mom pack up some things here. Remember, only what we can carry. We—"

 

Someone pounds on our front door.

 

Prim cries out and grabs my arm. Mom rushes back into the room, slamming the pantry door behind her.

 

"I'll get it," Peeta says.

 

"No. I will." I push Prim into my mother's arms. "Take off your coat," I tell her, and I stride to the door.

 

It's Thread, with at least a dozen other peacekeepers. They march into the front hall, pushing me aside.

 

"Wait, you can't just—"

 

"We have the list of eligible tributes for this year's reaping for you, Miss Everdeen," Thread says. He shoves a manilla folder into my arms. "Is Mr. Mellark here? He was not at home when we called." They sweep into the living room. "Ah excellent," Thread says.

 

I put myself between the peacekeepers and Prim and my mother. "What are you doing here?" I demand.

 

"Katniss," Peeta says.

 

"The list of eligible tributes," Thread says, handing Peeta another folder. "Eligible tributes are the family members of the tributes, as far removed as necessary for there to be at least one boy and one girl in the reaping pool. The degree of eligible relations is the same for each victor. It is your responsibility to notify the eligible tributes."

 

I stare at him. I don't understand what he's saying. It's like his words just aren't reaching my brain. I'm distracted by the other peacekeepers striding around the room, poking around with their guns.

 

"Going somewhere?" a woman peacekeeper asks, lifting Prim's coat off the sofa with the barrel of her gun for all to see.

 

"We were getting ready to go for a walk," Peeta says. "Prim is... upset. We thought some fresh air would do her good."

 

Right on cue, Prim lets out a tiny whimper. My mother wraps her arms around Prim from behind and holds her tight.

 

Thread opens the pantry door. Food is piled into a bag on the floor. More food is scattered about the little table, as if my mother set it down hurriedly when the peacekeepers knocked. "And this?" Thread asks.

 

"We hadn't gotten a chance to finish putting the shopping away," my mother says. "We had patients, and the mandatory programming. We're sorry for the mess. You understand, this is a bad time for us right now." As if they were only here on a social visit.

 

"We're done here," Thread says. He and his people stream out into the hall. At the dor, Thread turns back. "Remember, Miss Everdeen," he says to me, "to keep your walk within the confines of the district. The fence has power twenty-four seven, and we would hate to lose one of our victors. Our tributes need their mentors, don't they?" He leers at Prim. "Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor!"

 

When they are gone, I sink into a chair and put my face in my hands. Shivers wrack my body.

 

"We can't go," I whisper. "We have to stay."

 

"But—" my mother starts.

 

I look up at her. She's blurry from the tears in my eyes, but I can see that she's clutching Prim even tighter now. "There's no where we can go," I say. "They'll find us. They need their tributes. They'll hunt us down, and they'll kill us, and then they'll still put her in the arena, and she won't have anyone." I can barely look at Prim. My small, perfect sister. I volunteered for her. And they're going to kill her anyway.

 

I flip open the folder Thread gave me. Maybe Peeta has a female cousin, one other eligible girl, one slim chance that it won't be Prim.

 

The girls are listed above the boys, and there is only one name—Primrose Everdeen—in small, careful handwriting. I shut the folder and fold over my knees, burying my face in my hands again. "This is all my fault. I should never have held out those berries. I should have just died like I was supposed to."

 

"No," my mother whispers, but the silent room swallows her word. It is the only comfort I get. Even Peeta, who would normally speak up at a time like this, is silent.

 

I am being selfish. I know this. This should be about Prim. Prim, whom we are about to lose. Not me. And Peeta has family too. I wonder who, but I can't bring myself to open that stupid folder again and look at the boys.

 

I am relieved when the front door bursts open. My mother lets out a little scream, and I jerk up, but it's only Gale.

 

Gale goes straight to Prim and hugs her tightly. "It's all right," he says. "It's going to be all right. We're going to get you through this." He looks over Prim's head and meets my eyes, and his gaze is filled with sadness. "I'm so sorry, Katniss. We should have left when you said." And in those words, I hear what I already know. It is hopeless. The Capitol wants Prim dead to punish me. So she will die. I will try everything I can to save her, but she will die.

 

Peeta has been standing rigid, staring at the list of kids going into the reaping balls, but now he rouses himself and crosses to me. "Katniss, you need to see this."

 

He hands me his list. My eyes are caught, again, by Prim's name, but Peeta points to the boys. I drag my gaze down the page. There are two Mellarks on the list—Peeta's cousins, I guess. I don't recognize their names. And then—

 

"Oh no," I whisper. "Oh, God, no!"

 

Peeta grips my shoulder hard.

 

"What is it?" Gale lets go of Prim and comes over. "What's wrong?"

 

Peeta squeezes my shoulder. I have to be the one to tell Gale. I struggle to stand, clutching my folder and Peeta's list. "Gale, I'm—I'm so sorry." The words seem so hollow, not enough. How can they be? "It's—it's Rory. He's—Gale, he's on the list."

 

"What?" Gale says.

 

"He's on the list," I whisper.

 

During the Games, when Peeta and I made it into the final eight tributes, reporters came to District 12 to interview our friends and families. It wouldn't do for Gale—tall, handsome Gale—to be my best friend back home. Not when Peeta and I were supposed to be the starcrossed lovers from District 12. So someone said Gale was my cousin. Gale and all his siblings, five-year-old Posy, ten-year-old Vic, and twelve-year-old Rory. Twelve years old. Old enough to go into the reaping ball.

 

"He's my cousin," I whisper. I can't seem to pull in enough air to give my voice any volume.

 

"No he's not," Gale says. "We're not really your cousins. That's just what the Capitol—Let me see that." He rips Peeta's list from my hand and stares at it. His hands start to shake. "No," he whispers. "No!"

 

"I'm so sorry, Gale. Maybe—maybe it won't be him."

 

"Dammit, Katniss!" Gale shouts. “He took out tesserae!"

 

"Oh God."

 

"Yeah." Gale grabs his coat. "I need to go tell my mother."

 

"Gale—" But what can I say? Maybe he won't be picked? We all know how this is going to go. If you look at it from the Capitol's point of view—if you can stomach it—it makes sense. Katniss Everdeen's sister and cousin. The starcrossed lovers, trying to keep my family alive.

 

"Don't bother, Katniss," Gale says. He leaves.

 

I run after him. "Gale! I'll keep him safe! I'll—"

 

"You can't promise that," Gale says.

 

"I can try," I say.

 

"And if it comes down to a choice between him and Prim?"

 

I step back. "That's not fair. I don't know—"

 

"Well, you better think about it, Katniss, because we all know the Capitol won't let there be more than one victor. Not again."

 

He strides off into the darkness.

 

Peeta comes out onto the porch beside me. He wraps an arm around me, not a romantic arm, just a friend's embrace.

 

"What are we going to do?" I whimper.

 

"We'll figure something out," he says and squeezes me. "And I'm right behind you, whatever you want to do."

 

"Thanks, Peeta. Really, thanks. I'm sorry I got us all into this mess."

 

"It isn't your fault, you know," Peeta says. "You were just trying to keep us alive. You couldn't have known all this would happen."

 

I don't answer.

 

"I need to go tell my cousins," Peeta says. "You'll be all right?"

 

I turn and wrap my arms around him, pressing my face into his shoulder. His arms come up around me, holding me tightly. Then he lets me go and walks off towards town. I take a deep breath and walk back into my house.

 

My mother is in the pantry, unpacking the food again.

 

"Mom? Where's Prim?"

 

"She went—" She clears her throat. "She went outside."

 

I hurry to the back door.

 

"Katniss."

 

I pause with my hand on the doorknob.

 

"Let her be for a while," my mother says. "She'll—she'll be all right."


	3. Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prim deals with the announcement of the Quarter Quell and devises a plan with Haymitch, Gale, and Rory.

Chapter Three

Prim

 

I step outside, and then I'm running. I tear across the victors village, along the road into town, all the way to our old house, and then into the meadow. I stop by the fence, listening to the hum that means it's live with electricity and we are trapped. I am trapped. And my gasping breaths turn to sobs.

 

I sit in the tall, scraggly grass, bury my face in my knees, and cry.

 

I came out here the fourth night of Katniss's Games last year. Katniss was up a tree, the career tributes waiting for her at the bottom. Her hands and her calf were badly burned. I did not see how she could possibly live. That night, after the Anthem had played—no dead tributes that day—I came out into the meadow and stood by the fence. It was silent and dead. By morning, the careers would have formulated a plan, and my sister would be dead. And it would be up to me to feed our family.

 

I screwed up my courage and ducked under the weak spot in the fence Katniss liked the best. I stepped into the trees and stopped, trembling. Katniss loved it out here. She thrived on it. I would learn to thrive on it too. I would have to. I would be the rock my mother could cling to—I could cling to—when Katniss was gone.

 

But in the morning, it was Katniss who formulated a plan, Katniss who attacked the careers with the tracker jacker nest, Katniss who escaped, survived, came home to keep us all together herself.

 

But that night, in the trees, I gave up on her.

 

She pulled through, but I can feel those moments I spent in the woods like a crack between us.

 

But tonight she gave up on me. She'll fight for me—I know that—as much as she can, but I saw in her eyes that she doesn't believe I can do it, that the Capitol will kill me.

 

I stand up and wipe my eyes. I need to talk to Haymitch.

 

#

 

Haymitch doesn't answer when I knock, so I push his door open and go inside, the same way Katniss does. I have to be like Katniss now, think like Katniss, if I want to survive. And Katniss would not hesitate.

 

The house is cleaner since Haymitch hired Gale's mother, Hazelle, as a housecleaner, but I can tell the moment I step into the hall that Haymitch has been drinking. A lot. The very air is heavy with alcohol.

 

Sure enough, Haymitch is at his table in his shirtsleeves, staring down the neck of a mostly empty bottle of liquor. He looks up when I come in. His eyes refuse to focus.

 

"What are you doing here?" he says. His voice is thick. Maybe this isn't the best time to talk to him. Maybe...

 

No. A drunken promise is still a promise. I'll remind him if he doesn't remember, and this might be the only chance for me to talk with him without Katniss. Still, I'd prefer it if he wasn't completely drunk.

 

"I want to talk to you," I say.

 

"So talk." He raises the bottle to take another swig, but I grab it and yank it from his grip. It's harder than I expected. "Hey. What's that for?"

 

I stow the bottle in a cabinet and fill a glass of water. I crush some mint leaves in my palm and drop them in, then set the water in front of him. "Drink this. I take it you saw the mandatory programming."

 

"Why do you think I'm drinking, kid?"

 

I ignore this and put the tea kettle on the stove. "Well, that's what I want to talk to you about," I say. I sit across from him. "It's me. I'm the only girl. The boys are two of Peeta's cousins—I don't know anything about them—Peeta's never mentioned them—and Rory Hawthorn, Gale's little brother."

 

"I saw that." He jabs a finger at a folder on the table, the same folder the peacekeepers gave Katniss and Peeta.

 

"No one for you," I say.

 

"Lucky me," Haymitch grunts. He drains his glass of water. I get up to refill it, but he waves me back to my seat. "No one left. Except for you folks."

 

The kettle whistles, but neither of us move to take it off the stove.

 

"What I mean to say," Haymitch says, "is they're punishing me as much as your sister and Peeta, even if they don't mean it as their primary objective. Just an added bonus."

 

I wish I can stand up, bustle around, do something besides stare at him and say point-blank the reason why I'm here. But I steel myself. "Haymitch," I say, "I think we all know how this is going to go. Me and Rory. Draw Katniss and Peeta together. Push Katniss and Gale apart."

 

Haymitch nods. "You're probably right there."

 

"And it's just, well, this is awful and horrible and just—there aren't words for how bad this is—I don't want to die."

 

"Who does?"

 

"But we do have warning. Three months until reaping day. We can use that time."

 

"To do what?"

 

I lean forward, bracing my elbows on the table. "Train," I say, "like careers. Train as hard as we can. Give us a shot. I know I'm little and I don't have any skill that will be useful, but we do have time, and we should use it."

 

He sits back, rubbing his chin, considering. Finally, he says, "Why come to me? Why not talk to Katniss or Peeta."

 

"Because Katniss listens to you. She trusts you. You two might snipe and argue, but if she hears it from you, she might just listen. Right now, it's like she's already mourning me. But I'm not dead yet."

 

"No," Haymitch says. He rubs his chin again, thoughtfully. He doesn't seem drunk at all anymore. "No you're not."

 

"So...?"

 

"So, you've got a deal. Tomorrow morning, I'll talk to Katniss and Peeta. Gale too, if I can. We'll come up with a strategy, and we'll go from there. Hmmm. I think I'll give Cinna a call. He'll go a long way towards convincing Katniss that we have a shot. And you're right. We need Katniss on board with this."

 

"Thank you, Haymitch."

 

He waves a hand. "Least I can do," he says. "Now scram."

 

I scram.

 

But I don't go home. Instead, I walk through the dark streets back to the Seam. The district is quiet. Once in a while, I spot someone peering out of a window then twitching the curtains closed when they see me. There's no other evidence of the announcement that has sent my world reeling. I imagine the joy inside most of those homes. Their children have been spared for another year. They won't even go into the reaping balls. They are safe.

 

I lift my head high. Last year, Katniss went to her execution in my place. This year, I will go to the Games in the place of every girl in District 12. It does not make me feel strong. I would not have chosen it if I had a choice, but maybe I can do something with this.

 

I wait several minutes outside Gale's door until Hazelle answers, an apology already on her lips. "I'm sorry. This really isn't a good—Oh, Prim honey, come on in."

 

"I'd like to talk to Rory," I say, stepping into their kitchen. "You and Gale too if that's all right."

 

"Of course."

 

Gale and Rory are at the kitchen table. Gale is gripping Rory's arm hard, his face thunderous. Rory is staring off into space, his face completely blank.

 

"Hi," I say.

 

Neither of them answer.

 

"Sit down, Prim honey," Hazelle says. "I'll make some tea." She picks up the kettle, but her hands shake so violently that she nearly drops it.

 

"I'll do it," I say quickly, jumping up.

 

"Thank you," Hazelle says in barely more than a whisper. She sits on Rory's other side and wraps her arms around him. "It's going to be all right, baby," she whispers.

 

I fill the kettle with water and put it on the stove. Then I sit down across from them. I bite my lip, but there's no point beating around the bush. We're in the same situation. "I talked to Haymitch," I say.

 

Gale gives me a look that quite plainly says, "Nothing good can come from this."

 

"And we have a plan."

 

"What is it?" Hazelle says.

 

"Does Katniss know?" Gale asks.

 

"Katniss doesn't know yet," I say. "We're going to have to convince her it's worth it, but I think we can, especially if you agree, Gale."

 

"All right," Gale says. "What is it?"

 

"We have three months to the Games, right? So we have time. So we use that time to train."

 

"Of course we do," Gale says. I suddenly feel small, like my idea, the chance we have that I saw, is obvious. But Gale didn't see the look on Katniss's face when she gave up on me.

 

"I mean, we train twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. All of us. We come up with strategies, plan for everything we can. Who we might be facing. How we want to present ourselves to the people of the Capitol. Everything."

 

"What about school?" Hazelle says.

 

"I'm not going to school anymore," I say. There's no point. Either I'll be living in the victors village and I won't have to go to school anymore, or I'll be dead. But I don't say that aloud.

 

"I'll drop out too," Rory says at once.

 

"But what if it isn't you, Rory?" Hazelle says.

 

"I'll take the punishment," Gale says, "whatever it is. I'll tell them I made Rory stay home."

 

"Gale—" Hazelle starts.

 

"I'll do it, Mom. I'll be fine. I'll only be able to help out on Sundays. It's the least I can do."

 

I look at Rory. He's even smaller than me, with a baby's round face and curly dark brown hair cut close around his ears. He has olive skin, like Gale, and his bangs fall into his gray-green eyes. The first time I saw him was the ceremony at the justice building honoring our father's, killed in a mine accident. He was six years old, huddled with his pregnant mother and younger brother Vick while Gale accepted the same award for his father that Katniss had just accepted for us. I never saw much of him—it was Katniss and Gale who were friends—but we watched a lot of the Games together last year. And I liked having him at my side through that, a small, stoic force. I don't know if it's a good idea, but I want to know he's on my side.

 

"If it's you," I say, "allies?"

 

"Yeah," he says right away. "Allies."

 

It isn't much, but right now, I feel hopeful.

 

But by the time I reach home, I am reviewing all the Hunger Games I have seen on TV my whole life. I am envisioning every awful thing that has happened to the tributes, every awful act that has been committed. And the victors, the ones who survived. They will train their families as ferociously as we will train. They will form alliances for their tributes with friends from other districts. How often have I seen victors socializing during the Games? But Peeta and Katniss won't have those friendships. At best, my plan for us to train might level the playing field. Might. And then there are the muttations, the genetically engineered monsters the Gamemakers set on the tributes, and the natural disasters they'll throw at us too.

 

I enter our house, climb the stairs without speaking to anyone, and fall into bed.

 

I toss and turn for hours, not quite awake, but never really falling asleep either. I remember the tracker jackers and the giant wolf-things from Katniss's Games. Massive bird-lizard things swooping down on tributes and carrying them off. Volcanoes. Rockslides. Fires.

 

And over and over again, I am standing with the other twelve-year-olds from the Seam, and Effie Trinket is calling out, "Primrose Everdeen," and I am rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to run. And over and over again, I am lying on my floor with my ear pressed to the ventalation grate, listening to President Snow threaten my sister.

 

After hours of this, I get up. My tousled hair is heavy around my shoulders. I pad barefoot down the hall to Katniss's room with my eyes mostly shut.

 

Katniss is sitting on her bed, her arms tight around our mother. Mom is sobbing, huge, wracking sobs.

 

"You'll take care of her?" she keeps saying. "You'll take care of her, won't you? You'll bring her home."

 

"If it's the last thing I do," Katniss murmurs, and I realize she didn't give up on me after all.

 

Katniss spots me and waves me over. I cross the room and snuggle in with Mom and Katniss. And that is how we fall asleep, all three of us huddled together on Katniss's bed, keeping the Hunger Games, at least for now, at bay.


	4. Katniss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch train Prim and Rory for the Quarter Quell.

Chapter Four

Katniss

 

I wake to another glorious day, and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I reach out for Prim, but my fingers find only the mattress. My mother is gone too. I am reminded with startling clarity of the morning of the reaping last year, the other side of the mattress cold, Prim curled up with my mother in the other bed, her cat Buttercup standing guard over her.

 

Now I run my fingers over the satiny sheets, so much smoother than the canvas covering on our old mattress.

 

Some"one pounds on my door, then opens it. "Up you get, sweetheart," Haymitch says. Prim is behind him with a cup of coffee for me in her hands.

 

I sit up and take the coffee from Prim. "Thanks. Haymitch, what's going on?"

 

"What do you think is going on?" Haymitch says. He glances at Prim. I wish he wouldn't, but Prim keeps her head up and doesn't flinch. Good girl, I catch myself thinking. But I know she's scared. Of course she's scared.

 

"Haymitch, I don't think—"

 

"We're going to talk, Katniss," Haymitch says. No room for argument in his tone. "Get dressed and get downstairs in five minutes. Got it?" He leaves.

 

Prim lingers behind him, shifting from foot to foot and chewing her knuckles, something she hasn't done since she was very small.

 

"Don't worry, Prim," I say. I set down my coffee and get up to hug her, but she steps back from me. I freeze.

 

"I, um, I talked to Haymitch last night. And Gale. About... training." She whispers the last word. But then she squares her shoulders and looks me in the eye. "They think it's a good idea."

 

My first thought is, of course it's a good idea. Then, why didn't I think of it? Then, why didn't Prim talk to me about it? Why did she go to Haymitch, of all people?

 

"That's what Haymitch wants to talk to you about," Prim says in a rush. "Hazelle is here too with Rory. She has notes from Gale, because he's working today, but he'll come on Sundays he says. I don't know if Haymitch has talked to Peeta yet, but I think he called Cinna last night. Anyway, come downstairs fast, all right?" She flees. There's no other word for it. She can tell I'm upset that she didn't talk to me, and she doesn't want to face it. I don't blame her. I wouldn't want to face it, either.

 

A few minutes later, I'm fully dressed and downstairs. My mother, Haymitch, Peeta, and Hazelle are standing around waiting for us. Prim and Rory are hovering nearby, close together, and Peeta's twin cousins, Rye and Coriander, are muttering to each other by the fireplace. They are fourteen years old, but they are already hulking, taller and broader than Peeta.

 

"Why don't we talk outside," Haymitch says when I appear with my coffee. I know he's thinking of hidden cameras and microphones. It's technically illegal to train tributes. It happens every year, and I suspect that this year everyone will be doing it, but there's no need to flaunt it.

 

Haymitch turns to Rory, Prim, and Peeta's cousins. "You lot, stay in here for now. We'll call you when we need you."

 

I down the last of my coffee, and we go outside. We sit in the green in the center of the victors village. It's bright and windy. My hair whips around my face. No one will hear us talking out here. I see Prim and Rory with their noses pressed to the window to watch us.

 

"So," Haymitch says, "as you all know, we have a problem."

 

It is the biggest understatement I have ever heard.

 

"Our family members—well, your family members"—he points at me and Peeta—"are going to be this year's tributes. Now, Prim has proposed that we train our potential tributes for the Games, give them the best chance they can have. It's quite sensible." He looks at me. "Are you going to be difficult?"

 

"Difficult? That's ridiculous. Why would I—?” I stop myself. This must be why Prim went to them and not me.

 

"Katniss, when it comes to Prim, you don't think clearly," Haymitch says, "and I don't want you trying to protect her and getting in her way. This is going to be rough, but it's better than sending her into the arena with nothing."

 

I scowl, but I nod.

 

"Now," Haymitch says, "I think our strategy should be twofold. Physical and mental. We get all the kids in physical shape and hone their skills. At the same time, we analyze the competition."

 

"How do we do that?" Hazelle asks.

 

"Watch old Games," Peeta says. "This was my idea. We'll be training our kids with what we know, what we're good at, right? So it's stands to reason the other victors will be doing the same thing. I've already called Effie Trinket and asked for copies of all the old Games. She says they're on their way. If we look at how the victors won, we can make plans based on what their tributes will be good at."

 

"Katniss and I can help with edible plants," my mother says. "It would be ideal if we could still go into the woods, but we have the family book."

 

"And along with edible plants, we should cover poisons," Haymitch says. For a moment, his face clouds over.

 

"Gale will help with traps and shooting on Sundays," Hazelle says. "And anything else he can think of. He says he'd like to be involved with the strategizing, maybe in the evenings."

 

"We need to make strategies," my mother says, "but won't we need to teach them how to make strategies as well?"

 

"Peeta should do that," I say at once. "He's good with what the crowd wants to see, and that's very important."

 

"I called Cinna," Haymitch says. "He says he has some promising ideas, and not to worry."

 

I smile. Knowing Cinna is behind Prim, knowing he'll do for her what he did for me last year, warms my heart.

 

"And," Haymitch says, "I'll go sober. At least until it's over. We'll need all my wits."

 

"I'll give you something to help you through the withdrawal," my mother says.

 

Haymitch nods, then looks at each of us, in turn. "It's not an ideal situation by any means. It's not going to be pretty. But if we work hard, I bet we have a decent shot of bringing one of our kids home."

 

And that's all we can hope for.

 

At this point, my front door opens and Peeta's cousins come out and cross the green towards us. Peeta scowls. I get the impression that he doesn't like them much.

 

"Hey," says Rye—or Coriander—I can't tell them apart.

 

"We know you're organizing a training program for us," the other one says, "which is great, but to be honest, we don't want to train with her." He jerks his head back towards the house. Prim and Rory are still at the window. "I mean, we might have to kill her."

 

I jump to my feet, but Peeta leaps up too and grabs my arm.

 

"I'm sorry, but it's true. We all know it. No reason to pretend."

 

"There's every reason to pretend," Peeta says through gritted teeth. "If one of you goes to the Capitol with her, it will be in your best interest to be allies, to show a united front. You can't start off with this attitude."

 

"That's not all," the other twin says. "We don't want either of you to train us." He gestures at me and Peeta. "Katniss, it's thanks to your stunt last year that we're in this mess, and we all know something like that won't work again. And Peeta, you only made it home because of Katniss."

 

"True," Peeta says, "but you're running out of options here."

 

"We want Haymitch to train us separately," the first one says. "He has the most experience, the friendships to make us good alliances, he was in the last Quarter Quell, and he won his Games on the up and up."

 

"Shows what you know," Haymitch mutters, but only I hear. I wonder, not for the first time, how Haymitch won his Games. I don't think I've ever seen them replayed on television. Haymitch raises his voice. "Look, you two, I don't have time to run two training programs. None of us do. So either you're with us, or you're not. Obviously, we would prefer that you're with us." He says this like he doesn't mean it. "But if you're not happy with that, you're welcome to train on your own, and we wish you both luck."

 

The twins exchange looks. "We'll train on our own," they say at the same time, and then they turn and walk away.

 

Peeta rubs a hand across his face. "Damn," he says. "Why is everyone in my family awful?"

 

"You aren't," I say.

 

He smiles at me.

 

"Well," Haymitch says, "that complicates things, but it's nothing we can't handle. We're going to have to bring them in somehow, or we'll look bad for excluding them _if_ one of them is chosen. Peeta, we'll talk about this later. For now, we have a good plan for Prim and Rory. So let's get started."

 

And so we begin.

 

We start with the physical training. We run Prim and Rory all over the district, taking them through fast sprints and steady, long-distance jogs. We have them do sit ups and push ups and squats and jumping jacks until they can barely move. My mother puts them both on a special diet to help them put on some weight and build strength.

 

Prim is fast—faster than I thought she was—but she is also very weak. She falls during push ups, her arms visibly trembling. Haymitch yells at her to get up, to keep going, to do ten more. She gasps and holds her ribs during sit ups. Haymitch pokes her in the side with the toe of his boot, and she falls back. He demands ten more. He is not nice about it. Peeta grips my hand tightly, knowing that I want to interfere, warning me not to. Prim needs this, if she's going to stand any chance of surviving. I know this. So I do not speak out, but I still have to turn away.

 

At night, my mother rubs ointment into their sore muscles, and Prim winces and grits her teeth, but she doesn't make a sound.

 

Rory is not much better. He's even smaller than Prim, and not as fast a runner. And just like Prim, he's been sheltered from the hard tasks Gale and I took on when our fathers died. The first time we have them run with heavy backpacks on, Rory's knees buckle after only a few steps, and he crumples to the ground. Haymitch yells at him to get up, to keep going, that if this happens in the Games, he'll be dead. Rory gets up and staggers on.

 

We go to the tanner's in town and have him construct leather harnesses the kids can wear under their clothes. We add weights to these harnesses and have them wear them all the time, no matter what they are doing. When they're used to carrying that weight, we add more weights.

 

Gradually, we start seeing improvement. Their speed and endurance improves. Their muscles become more defined.

 

I yearn for the woods. Outside the district, we could run over uneven terrain, climb trees, practice shooting and snaring and swimming. These are skills they need to have. But with the fence charged with electricity and the peacekeepers watching us like hawks, that's not an option. I try to think of ways we could get into the woods—throw a rope over a branch hanging over the fence and climb up under cover of darkness, maybe—but it's too dangerous. I wouldn't dare try it. So there's no way I'll let Prim.

 

So we settle for races over the slag heap outside the mines—technically an off-limits area, but mostly the mine workers who are above ground are too busy cheering our tributes on to report us. We practice wrestling. Prim and Rory are evenly matched, but against a larger opponent, like Peeta or me, they are hopeless. So my mother steps in and shows them all the places on a human body where a quick jab will hurt like hell and could buy them time to get their feet under them.

 

"Mom, I didn't know you knew that," I gasp, rolling away from Prim with my hands clamped over my side. She got me right in the kidney, and the worst part is, I'm pretty sure she was holding back. "Ow!"

 

"I wouldn't sit up just yet," my mother says. I obey her and stay where I am on the ground. "When you are a healer," my mother says, "you know the body. You know what can hurt, as well as what will heal."

 

"I never thought of it like that," I say.

 

"I have an idea," Peeta says. He doesn't elaborate, but instead pulls out the notebook he's been carrying around ever since the announcement of the Quell, flips to a page with a bold heading, and makes a note. I struggle to my feet, wincing, and circle around behind him to read it. The page is for "Prim's Skills," and under this heading, he has just written one word: Poison.

 

"No," I say.

 

"Why not?"

 

"No!" I don't know why I'm so opposed to it. Objectively, it's probably a good idea. But I look at my sweet little sister, still crouched on the ground after our wrestling match, and I can't stand it. I just can't stand it! Prim is a healer, like my mother! She is not a killer! She can't be a killer! I won't let the Capitol turn her into a killer! "No," I say again.

 

"What's no?" Prim asks. She stretches her arms in front of her, her fingers interlocked and palms facing away from her.

 

"Katniss," Peeta says, but Haymitch stalks up on my other side, glances at Peeta's notebook, and then glowers at me.

 

"Remember how you said you wouldn't be difficult?"

 

"But—"

 

"Peeta's right, Katniss. She's got to have some offensive skills. Running and hiding and hunting won't be enough. It wasn't enough for you, was it?"

 

That shuts me up.

 

"So what's my offensive skill?" Prim asks.

 

"Beat Peeta at wrestling, and I'll tell you," Haymitch says.

 

I turn away. This is all kinds of awful, and I cannot watch anymore.

 

I go over to Rory and start teaching him how to make a basic twitch-up snare.

 

It doesn't get any easier.

 

Prim trains hard, both physically and mentally. She barely speaks a word except to answer the questions Peeta pelts at her or to ask a cautious question of her own. She never laughs. I watch her grow stronger, sharper, faster, and watch the little girl I fought so hard to protect fade away, become harder and harder for me to reach.

 

And yet, every night, she crawls into my bed and curls up with me, small and frightened of the darkness and the nightmares it brings. I hold her as she falls asleep, listen to her whimper in her dreams, soothe her when she wakes gasping.

 

Meanwhile, Peeta has taken over the strategical side of things. I let him. He's always so much better at handling the crowd and the cameras than I am. He watches all the tapes Effie sent us, making studious notes. Then he makes Prim and Rory watch them and analyze them. He's constantly throwing hypothetical scenarios at them that they need to work a way out of. Fast. He takes them through everything, from the moment their names come out of the reaping balls right into the Games. Not that we have any idea what they'll be facing in the Games, but the more they practice this kind of quick thinking, the better off they'll be. We agree on a system for gifts from sponsors—they will have sponsors—we'll make sure of that. It's similar to the way Haymitch and I communicated when I was in the arena last year, but we nail it down. If they need something, like water, and we don't get it to them, it's because they're close. If they do something right with the crowd, we send them some food. That sort of thing.

 

Gale comes every Sunday, when he's not working in the mines, and we work on snares and hunting. We have to be extra careful with this, because both are crimes, punishable by a whipping—if you're lucky—death—if you're not. Gale shows them how to make basic snares and traps, first from wire, then from any materials they have around. Prim is very good at finding useful bits of junk all over the place. Gale also works with strategy, like how to use the concept of snares to trap other tributes. He shows them how to use sticks and string—if they can't get their hands on string, Rory can use threads from his shirt and Prim can use strands of her own hair—to make a bow. We take over one of the vacant houses in the victors village and practice shooting on their homemade bows in the cellar, out of sight of the peacekeepers. Prim is dreadful, but Rory isn't bad. Before the fence was constantly live, Gale and I took him out into the woods a few times to teach him to shoot. He has a good eye for it, and now that his arms are stronger, I bet he'll do pretty well.

 

Haymitch sacrifices the knives from his kitchen so they can learn to throw knives. Just like me, they need to be able to kill from a distance. And Haymitch really doesn't cook much anyway.

 

After a few weeks, I notice Peeta has started to arrive late and in various conditions of bruised and dirty.

 

"What's up?" I ask him.

 

"It's nothing," he says.

 

When he arrives one morning holding his arm stiffly at his side and trying to write in his notebook with his left hand, Prim notices too. She sits him at the kitchen table and gently probes his arm with her fingers. "It's not broken," she says. "It seems like you strained the tendons in your elbow." She presses lightly on the inside of Peeta's elbow, and he winces. "Yep. Let me get you something." She goes to the medicine cabinet.

 

"What happened?" I ask Peeta, sitting next to him. "What have you been doing?"

 

"I've been training my cousins," Peeta says. He doesn't meet my eyes, as if he thinks I'll be angry about this. Sure, his cousins weren't the nicest people, but they're his family. They could be going into the Games because of us, and they should be trained.

 

"But I thought they didn't want you to train them," I say.

 

"They don't," Peeta says. "And honestly, I'm not sure they need me." He repositions his arm on the table and flinches.

 

"Seems to me like they're just looking for a reason to thrash you," Prim says. She returns to the table with a towel and the ointment our mother has been giving her for her sore muscles. Gently, she rubs the ointment into Peeta's arm, then she wraps his elbow in the towel and ties it in place. She uses some cord to tie his arm across his chest. "We don't want you using that and messing it up again," she says.

 

She sits across the table from him and picks up her knife and the nail she has been sharpening into a dart. She is silent for a moment. Finally, she says, "you can't keep doing this to yourself, Peeta. You'll exhaust yourself. You'll keep getting injured. And, I mean, Rye and Coriander are a whole lot bigger than you. They're hurting you. Actually hurting you."

 

"It just doesn't seem right to leave them on their own," Peeta says.

 

"But you're not," Prim says.

 

"Prim's right," Rory says suddenly. He's normally so quiet. "They made this choice. They knew what that meant. So it's not your fault, and are you really teaching them anything they don't already know?"

 

"I guess you’re right," Peeta says. There is silence, the sort of silence that is conspicuous by the things that are not said: that it will probably be Rory's name that comes out of the reaping ball, that we want Peeta—no, expect him, as horrible as that sounds—to mentor Prim and Rory, and only Prim and Rory.

 

"You don't do any of us any good if you're injured," Prim says. "My healing abilities only go so far."

 

"Very true," Peeta says, and that's the end of the discussion.

 

#

 

One morning, about a month and a half after the announcement of the Quell, I wake to the sound of Prim and Rory laughing. I go downstairs to find Peeta baking, of all things. Prim and Rory are in stitches. Prim clutches her sides, and Rory has tears in his eyes.

 

"I'm serious," Peeta says. He pokes Prim in the nose with his spoon, smearing white icing across her face. "What would you do if the arena was a giant cake?"

 

Prim tilts her head back, trying to reach her nose with her tongue.

 

"Well, we wouldn't go hungry," Rory says between gasps of laughter, then he doubles up again.

 

"Peeta," I say. "How is this helpful?" The baking cake smells glorious, and Prim and Rory are grinning—Prim is still trying to lick her frosting covered nose—and for some reason, this makes me angry.

 

"We're strategizing," Peeta says.

 

"There is no way the arena would ever be a giant cake," I say.

 

"You can't be sure about that, Katniss," Peeta says reasonably, waving his frosting spoon at me. "Besides, I firmly believe that cake makes everything better." He turns back to Prim. "So...?"

 

Prim scoops the frosting off her nose with her finger and licks it. "Well, the problem wouldn't be food. It would be water."

 

"There could be water in the Cornucopia," Rory says.

 

"And if there isn't?" Prim says.

 

"Then we frost the other tributes to death," Rory says.

 

"I'd burrow into the cake," Prim says. "Wait it out. Maybe I'd get water from sponsors?"

 

"How are you going to get sponsors if you're just waiting it out inside a cake?" Rory says. "They probably wouldn't even have cameras in there to see you."

 

"They have cameras everywhere," Peeta says. "Trust me. Always assume they have cameras."

 

"At some point, someone will realize I have the right of it," Prim says, "especially as all the others go down." The laughter leaves her eyes. The joke is over. "And besides, I'm bound to get at least some sponsors because I'm Katniss's sister, especially once people see I can take care of myself."

 

"Won't I get sponsors for being Katniss's cousin?" Rory asks.

 

"You're not as well-known as Prim," Peeta says, ruffling Rory's hair. "Not yet. But we'll take care of that. Don't worry."

 

"Katniss?" Prim says. "What's wrong?"

 

"Nothing's wrong. I'm fine." My voice is constricted, and everything is misting.

 

"You're crying." She says it just as I realize it. And then she is there, wrapping her thin arms around me and holding me tight, leaning her cheek against my shoulder. Her hair tickles my cheek. "It's okay. We'll be all right."

 

Peeta puts down his spoon, wipes his hands, and joins our embrace. It feels so good to have his arms around me. I feel so safe. And I break down completely. Distantly, I hear Peeta tell Rory to take the cake out of the oven. Then he's guiding me into a chair, and Prim is pressing a hot mug of mint tea into my hands.

 

"It's going to be all right, Katniss," she says. "It will."

 

"That's not why I'm crying," I say. But then I realize I can't tell her why I am crying. I can't tell her it's because I feel like everything is being stripped away from me, because I feel like she's pulling away from me, distancing herself for some reason I can't fathom. I can't tell her it's because Peeta, not me, made her laugh.

 

#

 

We've been keeping an eye on the fence in case there's a day when the power is cut, and one Sunday two months after the Quell is announced, just a month before the Games, just such a day arrives.

 

I wake to the chink of stones against my window. The sky is that deep blue of still night but creeping towards dawn. I wrench open the window and peer down into the shadows. Gale is standing there, Rory at his side, both of them grinning hugely. Gale gives me a thumbs-up. The fence is off.

 

I scramble to get dressed and to wake Prim. Gale will get Peeta. Haymitch has already said if the fence goes off, he'll stay in the victors village and send any peacekeepers who come looking for us off to all the wrong places. He has no interest in going into the woods. But I do! This is what I have been yearning for! This is what we need! Who knows how long we'll have.

 

We meet in the green and set off without a word. When we reach the weak spot in the fence by my old house, we are delighted to find that the fence is still dead. We slip under and into the woods. Gale and I retrieve our weapons. Rory has the small bow my father made me to learn to shoot on. He's gotten pretty good, even with our careful practice in the cellar of the vacant house in the victors village. Prim has fashioned herself a dart gun of sorts, and she's just as accurate with that as Rory is with his bow.

 

We have them run through the uneven terrain, just like I've been wanting them to do. We practice shooting and setting snares. Peeta shows them tricks to camouflage themselves. I explain tricks for finding water. We hike all the way out to the lake so Gale and I can show them how to fish and dig katniss roots, and we fill Gale's pack so he and his family will have a decent meal.

 

"We should see how they are at climbing trees," Peeta says.

 

"Race you to the top," Prim says to Rory, and she runs for the trees on the edge of the lake. I stand up, abandoning my fishing gear, to watch her scramble nimbly up the tree. Rory is right on her heals.

 

"You started first! No fair!"

 

"Life's not fair," Gale says under his breath.

 

"Katniss, look at this!" Prim calls down, and she leaps from one tree to the next, and then the next.

 

It hits me like a blow to the gut. Rue. She's just like Rue.

 

Rue. My ally. Twelve years old, just like Prim, but no one stepped forward to take her place on the stage when her name was called. Rue, whom I let die.

 

I've thought it before, how similar Rue and Prim are, but I have never felt it this acutely.

 

Rue and Prim, flying through the trees like birds.

 

She's going to die. She's going to die, and I'm not going to be able to save her. Nothing I do will save her. When Snow read that card, her fate was sealed as surely as that spear thudded into Rue's stomach. Nothing to do but hold her and sing to her and promise I would win. Not even that, because I will not be there to hold her or sing to her, and no promises will be enough.

 

"Katniss. Katniss!" Peeta has me by the arm. He's shaking me. Hard. "Snap out of it!"

 

"What?"

 

"You went away," Gale says. He doesn't ask where I went. They both know.

 

"Katniss, there's something we need to talk about," Peeta says. He glances up at the trees. Prim and Rory are still climbing around up there, tossing acorns at each other.

 

"What?" I say defensively. "What is it?"

 

"Look, Katniss, when it comes to Prim, you don't—well, you just don't think clearly. You can't. Of course you can't. How could you? I understand why. We all do. But you can't act like this during the Games. You'll get her killed."

 

"I'll get over it. I'll be fine."

 

"No, you won't," Peeta says. "You can't handle this. No one blames you for that. But, Katniss, you can't be Prim's mentor."

 

"Of course I can!" I shout. I hate his calm, reasonable tone just then. I hate that drop of panic inside me that's whispering that he's right. "She's my sister!"

 

He reaches towards me, but I slap his hand away.

 

"Katniss—"

 

"What am I supposed to do, Peeta? She's my sister! Am I supposed to let Haymitch mentor her?"

 

"Haymitch mentored us," Peeta says. "And he got us both home. You have to give him some credit. But no, that's not what I mean. I mean, let me mentor her, Katniss. Let me handle the sponsors and the media for Prim."

 

I stare at him, now unsure.

 

"You'll be better helping Rory," Peeta says. "You understand him better. You have the same skills in common. You'll be able to make better decisions."

 

"He's right, Catnip," Gale says. It's the first time he's called me Catnip, his private nicname for me, since the Quell was announced. "We've all talked about it. Prim will do great with Peeta as a mentor, and I wouldn't want Rory mentored by anyone but you."

 

"I thought I couldn't think clearly," I say through numb lips. They are all trying to take my sister away from me.

 

"You survived the Hunger Games," Gale says. "You can think clearly in a crisis. We all know that. It's just when it comes to Prim, you shut down, and we can't have that."

 

"Katniss," Peeta says, "trust me with this. Please. I'll take care of her. I promise."

 

I nod.


	5. Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reaping Day.

Chapter Five

Prim

 

The morning of the reaping, before all the cameras arrive, I bring Peeta across the victors village to my house. "I thought you should know," I say as I open the door, "since you're going to be my mentor and everything."

 

"Oh, Prim," he gasps as we enter the foyer.

 

I have not been back here since the night the Quell was announced, but everything is exactly the way I left it, everything that I have mended or made on display. I bring Peeta into the living room, to the table under the window with my shining city on it. I finished it before I went home that night, and now it gleams in the morning sunlight streaming through the window. I wipe some of the dust off with my sleeve.

 

"This is incredible," Peeta says. "You did all this? I didn't know—I had no idea..." He is lost for words. Peeta, who is normally so full of words, always the exact right words, has nothing to say.

 

"No one knows," I say. My chest tightens as I gaze at my city. Tears burn in my eyes, but I swallow them back. The cameras will be here soon. I cannot afford for all of Panem to see that I have been crying.

 

"Peeta," I manage finally, "if I—if I don't come home, will you do something for me?"

 

"Of course," he says. I am glad he does not try to deny that it is a possibility.

 

I touch the tower of ration tins, run my fingers over a paper boat in the river of blue stones, adjust a scrap of fabric on a miniscule clothesline. "Build it," I say. "Make it real."

 

#

 

We have a quiet lunch, just me and my mother and Katniss. Meat and greens and bakery bread from Peeta. Some cheese from my goat, Lady. The fence was off again this morning, and Katniss got a quart of wild strawberries. It is the same meal we had last year. We don't speak much. My stomach is roiling with nerves, but I eat as much as I can. After lunch, I clean up and dress carefully. Cinna called last night with very specific instructions.

 

I'm still too small to fit into the blue dress Katniss wore to the reaping last year, but I have a simple blue dress of my own that is similar enough, and Cinna sent beautiful soft leather shoes that are dyed the same shade of blue as the dress. I cut my nails and brush my teeth, and my mother does my hair in the same style she did Katniss's last year, the complicated braid swirling down across my shoulder. I savor her touch on my head, and when she is done, I reach up and wrap my fingers around hers. "You'll be all right?" I say. "You'll take the medicine like last year?"

 

"Don't worry about me, baby," she says. "You just take care of yourself. Promise me you'll be careful."

 

"I promise." I squeeze her hand. "Watch with Rory's family," I add.

 

"I will. And I'll bring them food. Don't worry about that either." She kisses the top of my head. "You're too good for this." Her voice breaks.

 

I stand up, turn around, and wrap my arms around her. "We'll come home, Mom," I say. "We both will, Katniss and me. I promise. We'll come home." But if I manage to keep that promise, who will I be when I return?

 

"Prim," Katniss calls up the stairs. "It's time to go."

 

Panic ripples through me. There's nothing to be scared of right now. I know exactly what is going to happen. My name will be drawn from the reaping ball, and I will mount the stage. A boy will be chosen. I hope it's not Rory. I hope so badly it's not Rory, that he is spared this. Then, we will get to say goodbye to our families, and then we will get on the train to the Capitol. That is all that is happening today.

 

"Look at you, little duck," Katniss says when I come down the stairs. She smoothes her hand down the back of my dress, even though there's no tail for her to tuck in. I give her a quack, and she smiles.

 

"Remember, there will be cameras out there," she says.

 

"I remember."

 

"And what's your strategy?" my mother prompts.

 

We've gone over this countless times, the conundrum of how to present me. The country sees me as Katniss's little sister, helpless and fragile, but beloved. This is what they will expect. This is what my fellow tributes will expect. And presenting myself as weak could be a good strategy. But at the same time, I'll need to get sponsors. People will be reluctant to sponsor a small, weak, scared girl. Eventually, we decided on the little sister everyone knows for the reaping, and then coming out strong once I'm in the Capitol. "Little sister," I say.

 

"Perfect."

 

Katniss takes my hand and opens the door to our house. Immediately, cameras start clicking. My mother gets on my other side and takes my hand. We step out into the sun, and I immediately duck my head, shying away from the cameras, the reporters who shout for me and Katniss.

 

"Chin up," Katniss says, and she gently pokes my chin up. It's all part of the act. I blink a few times in the camera flashes, draw in several sharp gasps. Katniss lets go of my hand and puts her arm around me. "I'm sorry," she says to the reporters, "we have to go. We'll be late." She and my mother hustle me past the reporters. I drop my head again.

 

In the square, I stand alone in the area roped off for the girls. My mother stands on the other side of the ropes. She wraps her arms around me and holds me tight. I fist my hands in her blouse. I know people are watching me, but I don't look at them. Behind me, I hear the rest of the district filing in to watch the reaping. In the boys' pen, Peeta's cousins stand, huge and menacing, close to the stage. Rory is towards the back. Hazelle has her arms around him. Gale is gripping his shoulder. Vick and little Posy are reaching under the rope to cling to his hands.

 

It's hot, and we stand and sweat in the square in silence. Peacekeepers on the roofs around the square aim machine guns down into the crowd.

 

Up on the stage, the mayor is fiddling with the microphone. Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta are sitting in the chairs for the victors.

 

"Welcome!" the mayor says. "Welcome to the seventy-fifth Hunger Games!" His words are greeted with silence, just as they always are. He looks at the boys in their pen, and then at me, the only girl. His jaw tightens. "And may the odds be ever in your favor."

 

He reads the Treaty of Treason, and then he hands the microphone over to Effie Trinket. This year, her wig is gold. I know Katniss likes Effie, in a way. Effie helped save her life last year, so she sort of has to like her. But when she pipes, "Happy Hunger Games!" in her stupid fake Capitol accent, I feel a rush of loathing. It's so unlike me. I guess I've become harder in these last few months. It's not even Effie. It's everything she stands for.

 

"Ladies first," she says. She goes over to the huge glass ball with two small slips of paper in it. Both mine. The glass sphere looks so much bigger without the thousands of slips of paper usually in it.

 

Effie has a hard time grabbing one. First she grabs both accidentally, then she drops both. Finally, grasping the paper in her hand, she clipclops her way back to the podium in her ridiculously high shoes. She smoothes out the paper. I'm going tense all over. Goosebumps erupt on my arms. I'm going to throw up. I'm going to lose my head and run for it.

 

"Primrose Everdeen!" she calls out.

 

My mother's arms tighten around me, and she lets out a tiny sob.

 

I take a deep breath. Move, Prim. Move. They're not going to kill you yet.

 

I extricate myself from my mother with a squeeze of her hand, and I walk slowly across the empty pen and then up the stairs onto the stage.

 

And then Katniss is in front of me, pushing me behind her. "Effie, can't I—"

 

"No, no, I'm so sorry, Katniss," Effie says. And she really looks it. "Rules are rules, you know."

 

Haymitch reaches out and yanks Katniss back into her seat, leaving me exposed. Peeta gives me a gentle nudge forward, and I cross the stage to Effie.

 

"That's a girl," Effie whispers as she turns me to face the district. I lift my chin a little higher.

 

"And now for the boys." Effie crosses back to the reaping balls. There are twelve names in the boys' ball. Three are Rye. Three are Coriander. Six are Rory.

 

Effie reaches in and digs around for a minute.

 

Not Rory. Please, not Rory! Please!

 

She chooses a name, walks back to the podium, unfolds it.

 

Please, not Rory! Not Rory!

 

"Rory Hawthorn!"

 

"Oh no," I whisper.

 

To my right, I hear Katniss let out a small moan.

 

Peeta's cousins part to let Rory up, but Rory isn't moving. His family is clutching at him, and he's clutching at them.

 

"Rory, no!" Posy screams. "No! No! No!"

 

"Come on up now," Effie says.

 

Gale releases Rory, pulls him free of his mother and younger siblings, and pushes him forward. He seems to be trying to muster an encouraging smile for Rory, but it looks more like a grimace.

 

Rory stumbles. He is crying. Oh no.

 

He gets up onto the stage, wiping frantically at his eyes, but it's too late. Everyone has already seen. When he reaches me, I take his hand and clutch it tightly.

 

Effie asks for volunteers, and I have a moment of desperate hope that one of Peeta's cousins will volunteer. Maybe they want to go to the Capitol, want the glory, want something—anything. But there is only silence.

 

"Well then. I present your tributes from District 12!" Effie shouts into the microphone. "Primrose Everdeen and Rory Hawthorn! Shake hands, you two." She turns to us and realizes we are already holding hands. Her cheeks go pink. But I lift our linked hands into the air, the same way Katniss and Peeta always do.

 

Effie blinks back tears.

 

And then peacekeepers are marching onto the stage, getting between us and the crowd, pushing us backwards.

 

"What's going on?" I hear Katniss ask. "They get to say goodbye."

 

"New procedure," I hear Thread say. "Straight to the train."

 

What? I don't get to say goodbye?

 

"Prim!" my mother screams.

 

"Mommy!" I lunge forward, but a peacekeeper grabs me around the chest and holds me back. "Mommy!"

 

She rushes the stage, Rory's family right beside her, but the peacekeepers push them back. Hard.

 

"Stop it!" I scream. "Stop it! Leave them alone!"

 

"Come on! Move it!" The peacekeeper holding me drags me back. "Don't make a scene."

 

And then I see Posy, dashing up the steps, dodging between two peacekeepers, and throwing herself at her brother. "Rory! Rory! You can't go!"

 

Rory wraps his arms around her tightly.

 

A peacekeeper grabs Posy.

 

"No!" I scream. "Leave her alone!"

 

I twist and bite the peacekeeper holding me. I taste blood. The peacekeeper swears and lets go of me, long enough for me to throw myself at the man who's grabbed Posy. But he simply knocks me aside and hurls Posy off the stage. Posy—tiny, five-year-old Posy—goes flying.

 

Hands grab me and haul me up. I struggle, and someone slaps me. My eyes water. I am shoved roughly into the back of a truck.

 

"Let her go!" I hear Peeta shouting. Peeta, who so rarely shouts. "How dare you manhandle our tributes like that. If she's hurt, you will be responsible."

 

He is thrown into the back of the truck with me. Then Katniss hustles Rory inside. Haymitch and Effie hurry after them, and the peacekeepers slam the doors shut.

 

Rory curls up on the floor of the truck, sobbing.

 

"What in the world was that?" Peeta shouts.

 

"I bit a peacekeeper," I whisper. "I bit him."

 

Rory is still sobbing. I crawl over to him and rub his back. "Stop crying. You have to stop crying, Rory."

 

"No," Haymitch says. "We can use this."

 

"How can we use this?" Peeta cries.

 

"Hang on. I'm thinking."

 

"I cannot believe they treated us like that," Effie is saying hysterically. "Such bad manners. And that poor little girl!"

 

"Effie, shut up," Katniss says. Then she adds quickly, "Please."

 

The truck screeches to a stop. "Effie," Haymitch says, "get them onto the train as fast as you can. Before they do even more damage."

 

"Yes. Yes. That is my job. Come, children."

 

I grip Rory's hand and pull him to his feet.

 

There are no cameras on the platform. No crowd at all to see us off. Only the peacekeepers and their guns. Effie ushers us out of the truck and across the platform. Rory keeps his head down. He's stopped sobbing, but he's still sniffling. I glare around at everyone. We reach the train, and Effie hustles us aboard. As soon as Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch are aboard, the door slams shut and we start rolling. Effie shows us our rooms and tells us to get cleaned up for supper, then she leaves us.

 

Rory and I stand in the hallway outside our doors, looking at each other.

 

"We sure messed that up, didn't we?" Rory says.

 

I nod. "Maybe they can use it."

 

From down the hall, I hear Peeta's angry voice. "It's like the peacekeepers wanted to cause a scene! What are we going to do with this?"

 

"We're going to handle it, Peeta," Haymitch says.

 

I turn away. I don't want to eavesdrop.

 

"Prim?" Rory asks. "Do you think Posy will be all right?"

 

"She'll be fine. My mom will take care of her. Don't worry."

 

I go into my room to get cleaned up for dinner.

 

#

 

The food is spectacular, but I barely notice what I'm eating. Katniss keeps piling food onto my plate. I need all the weight I can put on. I'll lose it fast enough in the arena. And I might as well enjoy it. But I feel like I am eating cardboard.

 

We are all mostly silent. Peeta tries a few times to make conversation.

 

"I love your hair, Effie," he says.

 

"Oh thank you. I got it to match Katniss's pin. I thought we could get our kids pins like hers, for their tokens. And something gold for you and Haymitch as well. So we're like a team."

 

"That sounds like a great idea," Peeta says. "What do you all think?"

 

"Sure," Haymitch says dully. He's gazing at the bottle of wine on the table. "Whatever."

 

Effie notices Haymitch's gaze and calls over an attendant to take away her wine and the bottle.

 

"Prim and Rory shouldn't have mockingjays," Katniss says. "It's too... similar. To mine. And they need to be different. At least a little." I know she's thinking of what that mockingjay really means. She whispered it to me, one night when neither of us could sleep, all about the refugees fleeing the rebellion in 8 and the cracker with the mockingjay stamped into it. No, Rory and I don't want to be wearing mockingjays in the arena.

 

"Maybe another kind of bird," I say.

 

"That's a good idea, Prim," Peeta says. We fall silent again.

 

After dinner, we go into another car and crowd around a television to watch the recap of all the reapings. Peeta has his notebook balanced on his knee, pen poised to take notes.

 

Caesar Flickerman appears on screen in front of the training center. "Welcome!" he cries. "Welcome to the seventy-fifth Hunger Games! The festivities have officially begun. Our tributes have been chosen, and they are on their way here to us now. So let's get a look at who they are!"

 

The crowd roars its approval, and the screen flicks to a shot of the stage in front of the justice building in District 1.

 

The District 1 escort—a woman with jewels set into her cheekbones—calls a name, and the camera zooms in on a little girl with dirty blond hair. But then another girl shouts, "I volunteer as tribute!" The camera switches to her. She's tall and willowy with glossy brown hair pulled up on top of her head. She strides confidently up onto the stage and gives her name—Ebony. We get a glimpse of two victors she must be related to, the beautiful brother and sister, Cashmere and Gloss, who won consecutive Games. Ebony is haughty and confident.

 

Peeta makes a note in his book.

 

Then a boy is called. He's tall, but he moves awkwardly, as if he hasn't quite grown into his height. But the determined smile on his face chills me.

 

"They'll be careers for sure," Haymitch says.

 

He makes the same comment about the tributes from District 2, who are unremarkable except for their obvious strength.

 

The boy from 3 is weedy and angry.

 

The girl from 4 is spindly but strong-looking. She has reddish hair that frizzes in the humidity and a large amount of freckles. The boy from 4 is blind. When he is called, his older sister—the victor Annie Cresta—loses her head completely, wrapping her arms around him and screaming. Finnick O'Daire, who was the youngest victor ever, pulls her off him and guides the boy up to the podium.

 

"That's so sad," I whisper.

 

"I doubt they'll join the career pack," Peeta says. I can tell he's trying to  remain detached, but his shaking hands give the lie to his calm voice.

 

"Finnick will be mentoring both of them," Haymitch says. "Annie's in no fit state to mentor her brother."

 

"Isn't she the one who went a little crazy in her Games?" Katniss asks.

 

"When her district partner died, yes," Effie said. "It was really quite tragic, but such a beautiful story. Not as beautiful as your story, though, of course." She pats Katniss's hand.

 

"Haymitch, you said Finnick would be mentoring both of them," Katniss says. "Why the girl too?"

 

"Bree is Mags's granddaughter. Mags showed me pictures a few years ago. Sweet kid, she said. But Mags is sick and isn't going to the Capitol this year. And Mags was Finnick's mentor in his Games. She's been like a mother to him."

 

The kids from 5 and 6 seem underfed and bitter. Strange, for relatives of victors. But then the cameras show us their parents, scrawny, sickly, yellowish skin, and hands turned to claws, and spastic, unfocused eyes.

 

"Morphling addicts," Haymitch says.

 

The girl from 7, Ennis, actually launches herself at her second cousin, Johanna Mason, and rakes her face with her fingernails.

 

"Something tells me they don't get along too well," Peeta says. He looks at me and Rory. "But be careful of her. Johanna is the one who pretended to be a weakling and then killed everybody with an axe, remember?"

 

We nod.

 

The pair from 8 are siblings. Calico and Jason. Their mother, Cecelia, weeps openly as Jason puts his arm around his younger sister and holds her close. In the crowd, their youngest sister shrieks in her father's arms.

 

"Oh, poor Cecelia," Effie moans.

 

The girl from 11, Ivy, looks like she's my age, and only a little taller than me. She stands tall on the stage, facing the crowd almost defiantly. I like her right away, but the boy who comes to stand beside her seems shifty to me.

 

And then we're at District 12.

 

I glance at Katniss, but at some point she shut her eyes and buried her face against Peeta's shoulder. Peeta has his arm around her.

 

"Maybe they won't show it all," Peeta says uncertainly.

 

"And pass up something that good?" Haymitch says. "She bit a peacekeeper."

 

He's right. They show it all. Every minute of it.

 

Then Caesar Flickerman is back with Claudius Templesmith beside him, and they're talking about how exciting everything is, how this is going to be the best Hunger Games ever.

 

Effie switches off the television. "Well," she says, "we've certainly gotten their attention." She turns to me and Rory. "Now, I've been lining up sponsors for you for the last few months, just like Peeta asked. Nothing's definite, of course. It will be down to these three to seal the deals, but I'll get them to the bargaining table if I have to do it at gunpoint." I wince. She doesn't seem to realize what that expression really means. "I'm sure we'll get you some help," she says brightly. "You two just have to do exactly what we say. Understand? Rory, no more crying. Prim, no more biting people."

 

I manage a smile and nod.

 

"Good. Now go get some sleep. You're going to need it."

 

As we leave, I hear Effie say, "How are you holding up, Katniss, dear?"

 

#

 

Almost as soon as I fall asleep, I am being chased through the woods of Katniss's Games by the tall girl from District 1, Ebony. Then the blind boy is sticking out his foot to trip me, and I go flying into a tree. The boy from 11 is laughing, and Ennis from 7 is leveling an axe at my head.

 

I wake gasping and shivering.

 

I slip out of bed, wrap myself in a soft robe, and go in search of Katniss.

 

I find her in the television compartment with Peeta. A Capitol attendant is giving them hot milk with spices. When he sees me enter, he pours another mug and presses it into my hands with a soft smile. "I added honey and cinnamon, miss," he says.

 

"Thank you," I say, and I sit on the couch beside Katniss.

 

The attendant's gaze lingers on me, and then he leaves.

 

"Couldn't sleep?" she asks.

 

I shake my head and lean against her side. Peeta is flipping through the box of tapes of old Hunger Games. He pulls one out, then hesitates.

 

"Who's is it?" I ask.

 

"Haymitch," he says. I sit up straight. I've never seen Haymitch's Games. Katniss looks interested too. She takes the tape from Peeta and examines it. I see that it's marked with the number 50, the year of the second Quarter Quell, and the name of the victor: Haymitch Abernathy.

 

"I knew Haymitch didn't want to watch it," Peeta says. "The same way we didn't want to relive our own Games. And since we're all on the same team, I didn't think it mattered much."

 

"Is the person who won in twenty-five in here?" Katniss asks.

 

"I don't think so," Peeta says. He flicks through the box, then his notebook. "She died a long time ago. Effie says people think she killed herself, but of course the Capitol doesn't confirm that sort of thing."

 

"Twenty-five was the year they had to vote for their tributes, right?" I ask.

 

"Yes," Katniss says and shudders.

 

"Anyway," Peeta says, "the victor from twenty-five didn't have any eligible relatives this year. That girl from 2, though, Diana? Her grandfather's been dead ten years. He won in twenty. She's what, fifteen? She can probably barely remember him."

 

"That seems unfair," I say.

 

"The whole thing's unfair," Katniss says. "Don't feel too sorry for her, Prim. She's from 2, remember."

 

I take the tape from Katniss and weigh it in my hands. "Should we watch it?" I ask. "It could be useful, to see another Quell."

 

"It feels weird," Katniss says.

 

"Wrong," Peeta says.

 

I know what they mean. Haymitch never volunteers any information about his Games, and why would he? And if he doesn't want to share, why should we pry?

 

But I'm curious. Not just because it's a Quell, but also because it's Haymitch. Maybe knowing some more about Haymitch will help me in the arena. He's the only experienced mentor we have. Peeta and Katniss will have to be working closely with him during the Games, which means I'll be relying on him just as much as Peeta. "I think we should watch it," I say.

 

Katniss nods. I lean forward and slide the tape in. The Anthem plays, and I sit back with my milk to watch the fiftieth Hunger Games.

 

Rory comes in just as the Anthem is finishing. He sits beside me and leans against me. "What are you watching?" he asks.

 

A younger President Snow comes on the screen. He removes a card marked 50 from the same wooden box and reads out the twist for the second Quarter Quell. Twice as many tributes.

"Oh," Rory says. Then he asks, "Has Snow been president for forever?"

 

"Probably," Katniss says. She hands Rory her mug of warm milk, then takes Peeta's from him and takes a sip.

 

"Oh, I see how it is," Peeta says.

 

"I'd get another one, but Prim's on top of me," Katniss says.

 

"Rory's on top of me," I say.

 

"Yeah, well, you're all on top of me," Peeta says. He takes his milk back from Katniss.

 

We fall silent as the reapings begin. Name after name is called. Kid after kid steps forward. Two boys and two girls from each district. Just the number of kids going to die is sickening, and all the levity in the room vanishes.

 

A woman who isn't Effie calls the names in District 12. "Ladies first," she says, just like Effie does every year now. First she picks a half-starved girl from the Seam. Then she calls Maysilee Donner.

 

"Oh," Katniss says. "She was my mother's friend."

 

The camera finds her in the crowd, clinging to two other girls.

 

"That's Mom there," I say, pointing to the girl who is hugging Maysilee.

 

We watch Maysilee disengage from her friends and walk to the stage, and we get a clear shot of our mother when she was Katniss's age. She really was beautiful. The girl clinging to her hand and weeping looks very like Maysilee, but also like...

 

"Katniss," I say, "that other girl looks just like Madge, doesn't she?"

 

"She's her mother," Peeta says. "She and Maysilee were twins or something. My dad mentioned it once."

 

I see the recognition in Katniss's eyes as she realizes it too.

 

"You said Madge said your pin was her aunt's, didn't you?" I say. "What if it was her?"

 

Haymitch is called last of all.

 

"Look at him," Katniss says. He's young and strong. Handsome too, even.

 

"Oh, Peeta," Katniss says suddenly, "you dont think he killed Maysilee, do you?"

 

"With forty-eight players? I'd say the odds are against it."

 

Katniss sighs in relief.

 

The tributes whiz by in their chariot rides. The District 12 kids are dressed, as usual, in awful coal miner costumes. Katniss and Peeta's flaming costomes last year were an astonishing exception.

 

They only show clips, soundbites really, from all the interviews. There are so many tributes, there's barely time to acknowledge any of them on the tape. We do get a complete exchange between Caesar and Haymitch, though.

 

"So, Haymitch," Caesar says. He looks just the same as always in his twinkling blue suit, except this year, his hair, eyelids, and lips are dark green. "What do you think of the Games having one hundred percent more competitors than usual?"

 

Haymitch shrugs, his eyes glinting dangerously. "I don't see that it makes much difference. They'll still be one hundred percent as stupid as usual, so I figure my odds will be roughly the same."

 

The audience laughs, and Haymitch smiles crookedly.

 

"He didn't have to reach far for that angle, did he?" Katniss says.

 

The morning of the Games arrives. We rise up with one of the tributes through the tube from the launch room into the most beautiful arena I have ever seen.

 

The camera pans around the circle of forty-eight tributes, showing shock and wonder dawning on their faces. Even Haymitch looks happy, at least for a second.

 

The ring of tributes and the golden Cornucopia spilling with treasure—food, weapons, shelter—are in the middle of a green meadow dotted with patches of gorgeous flowers. The sky is a bright, clear blue. Jewel-toned songbirds pinwheel around puffy white clouds. In the distance in one direction, we can see a snowcapped mountain. An aereal shot of the whole arena shows us sparse woods far in the other direction.

 

The gong sounds. Most of the tributes are still dazed by the breathtaking arena, and they have trouble rousing themselves. Haymitch leaps off his plate right away, though. He dashes to the Cornucopia and grabs up weapons and a heavy backpack from right inside the mouth of the horn—the best supplies. He's hurtling off towards the woods before most of the others have even begun to move.

 

"Wow," Peeta says.

 

"Wouldn't have worked if everyone else had moved," Katniss says.

 

Eighteen tributes are killed in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. A well-stocked pack of ten career tributes starts searching the mountain area for more victims. Over the first few days, more tributes die. Some killed by the careers, but most because of the arena.

 

"It's all poison," I say, leaning forward. The luscious fruit drooping on tree branches, the clear water in the streams and pools, even the scent of some of the flowers breathed in too directly. It's all deadly.

 

"So it's rainwater or food sent in by sponsors, then," Rory says.

 

I study the fruit, the flowers, even the water, remembering what Peeta said about poison. How can I use it? It's unlikely they'll have the same types of poison in our arena, but it's still worth studying. I watch one of the girls from District 8 twitch and moan to death, frothing at the mouth like an animal, tears streaming from her eyes, and I am sickened. How can I do that to someone?

 

If it's a choice between me and them?

 

I promised my mother I would come home.

 

I still don't like it.

 

Haymitch reaches the woods by the end of the first day. He presses on, keeping the mountain at his back. On the third day, he walks into the territory of what turns out to be fluffy, golden, carnivorous squirrels. When they dive at him out of the trees, I actually shriek in surprise. Rory jumps and spills his milk all over his bathrobe. I expect Peeta to tell us to toughen up, but he seems just as stunned as us.

 

Haymitch fends off the squirrels with his knife and pushes on.

 

Just hours later, he's fighting off giant butterflies. A few sting him, raising lumps the size of small oranges under his skin.

 

The woods are also teeming with tributes, mostly hiding from the careers. Maysilee Donner is one of them. She got away from the Cornucopia with a small backpack. Inside, she finds some dried beef and a blowgun with two dozen darts. She poisons the darts by plunging them into the succulent-looking fruits, and shoots them at anyone who comes near her. She is deadly accurate.

 

"You could do that," Rory says to me.

 

I nod. "I could," I say slowly. "But I hope I don't have to."

 

On the fourth day, the mountain explodes in a volcano. Twelve more tributes die, including half of the career pack. The volcano drives the last thirteen tributes into the woods.

 

Haymitch keeps pushing on away from the mountain until a maze of impassible hedges forces him to turn back. He is cornered by three of the careers. I find myself gripping Katniss's arm so hard I must be hurting her as I watch them fight. The careers are so much bigger and stronger than Haymitch, but he's faster. He kills two, but then the third career disarms him, wrestles him to the ground, and raises his knife to slit his throat.

 

And then a dart plunges into his arm and he drops on top of Haymitch.

 

Haymitch struggles out from under him as Maysilee Donner steps into the clearing, blowgun loaded, scanning the area for more careers. "We'd live longer with two of us," she says to Haymitch.

 

"Guess you just proved that," Haymitch says. He gets up, rubbing his throat. He gathers up his weapons and strips the three careers of their supplies. "Allies?"

 

Maysilee nods, lowers her blowgun, and helps him gather up the careers things.

 

They do better as a team. They get more rest, gather more water. Haymitch insists they press on in his original direction. When Maysilee asks why, he ignores her. She stops walking.

 

"What are we doing, Haymitch?"

 

"It has to end somewhere, right? The arena can't go on forever."

 

"Is he going to try to break out?" Rory asks.

 

"No," I say. "They'd never let him do that."

 

"What do you expect to find?" Maysilee says.

 

"I don't know," Haymitch says. "But maybe there's something we can use."

 

They use a blowtorch from one of the career's packs to burn a way through the dense hedges. They arrive on a patch of bare, packed earth that leads to a cliff. Haymitch walks to the edge of the cliff and peers over at the jagged rocks lining the ground below.

 

"That's all there is, Haymitch," Maysilee says. "Let's go back."

 

"No, I'm staying here." He doesn't look at her.

 

"All right. There's only five of us left. May as well say goodbye now, anyway. I don't want it to come down to you and me."

 

"Okay." He isn't looking at her. He is still staring over the edge of the cliff.

 

Maysilee walks away.

 

Haymitch walks along the edge of the cliff, clearly thinking hard. He hits a pebble with his toe and it bounces once before tumbling off the edge of the cliff. Haymitch sits on the edge of the cliff to rest, and a moment later the pebble he kicked shoots back up beside him. He picks up a fist-sized rock and tosses it over the cliff. A moment later it flies back up. He catches it and begins to laugh.

 

"I never thought about the edge of the arena," I say slowly. "But he's right. They can't go on forever. And maybe you can use it for something."

 

"No," Haymitch says behind me. I twist around in time to see him click a remote. The television goes dark. "You can't."

 

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Then I find my voice. "Haymitch, we're sorry. We shouldn't have—"

 

"No," he says again, "you shouldn't have." He is white as a sheet, sweat collecting on his forehead and upper lip. His hands are shaking. He is holding a wine bottle. So much for sobriety. He points at me and Rory with the bottle. "You two, out."

 

"But—" Rory starts.

 

"Out."

 

We step out of the compartment, and Haymitch closes the door behind us, but we can still hear them talking.

 

"You have to be careful," Haymitch says. "You don't want to give those two the wrong ideas. Especially Prim. If you want either of them to make it out of this alive, they can't have ideas like that in their heads. Trust me."

 

"That force field," Peeta says. "It was like the one on the training center roof, the one that throws you back if you try to jump off the roof."

 

"That's how you won your Games, isn't it?" Katniss says. "You used the force field at the edge of the arena. You turned their arena into a weapon."

 

"I bet they weren't happy about that," Peeta says. "That's almost as bad as us and the berries."

 

Katniss actually laughs.

 

"Almost," Haymitch says, "but not quite. But, Katniss, your sister bit a peacekeeper."

 

Katniss stops laughing.

 

"You know what I got for my stunt with the force field?" Haymitch says. "My mother. My little brother. My girl. All dead. Two weeks after I was crowned victor."

 

"Oh, Haymitch," I whisper, but of course, they don't hear me.

 

"And you know what you got for those berries, Katniss. They could spin the berries. They could spin the force field. If Prim does anything like that, it will be deliberate. With the districts in the state they're in, it will mean rebellion. And Prim will be dead. Do you understand me? Dead."

 

Rory grips my hand and tugs me down the corridor and into the car with our bedrooms. "They shouldn't talk like that," he says. He looks at me uneasily.

 

"I'm not going to do anything like that," I say to him. "I'm not stupid."

 

But when I am back in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling and rocked by the motion of the train, I wonder what exactly Haymitch did with that force field, and I ponder rebellion. When I finally fall asleep, I dream of my shining city—not the model under the window in the vacant house in the victors village, but the real one, bright and bustling and alive with possibility.


	6. Katniss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tributes and victors arrive in the Capitol and prepare for the tribute parade.

Chapter Six

Katniss

 

I wake already fizzing with nerves. Today we will arrive in the Capitol. Today it really begins.

 

I dress and head for the dining car. I meet Effie in the corridor. She is positively bubbly with excitement. She must have had coffee delivered to her room.

 

"Today's the day!" she chirps at me.

 

"Yes, it is," I mumble.

 

"Cheer up, Katniss. They're going to do great. People will love them. They already love them, I guarantee it. Now come along. Let's get some breakfast. We have a big day ahead of us."

 

We find Peeta and Prim already at the breakfast table. Prim has a plate piled with pancakes with syrup and fried potatoes and fruit.

 

Peeta is dunking bread into his hot chocolate.

 

"That looks disgusting," Prim says.

 

"No, it's really good," Peeta says. "Try it." He passes her the bread basket.

 

Prim takes a roll, tears off a piece, and submerges it in her own chocolate. She tries it and makes a face. "Definitely disgusting."

 

I sit beside her. "I always thought so too," I say. "Thank you," I add to the Capitol attendant who brings me orange juice and hot chocolate of my own.

 

"You're welcome, Miss. And would you like pancakes, potatoes, bacon, fruit?"

 

"everything," I say. I look at Prim's plate. "And bring some bacon for her as well, please."

 

"Of course, miss." He disappears.

 

"Where is Rory?" Effie asks. "And Haymitch? Should I wake them?"

 

"I'm here," Haymitch says. "No need to wake me." He plunks down at the table, pours himself some juice, and thins it with some sort of clear alcohol.

 

"Haymitch," I say, trying hard to keep the disapproval from my voice.

 

"Hey, I stayed sober enough to help you two last year, so just trust me on this, Katniss, all right?"

 

I nod. "All right."

 

The attendant returns with my breakfast and Prim's bacon.

 

"Katniss, I'm full," Prim says as I shove the plate towards her.

 

"Eat it," I say. "You need the protein. You should know that. And you have a long day before lunch."

 

Effie rises. "I better go get Rory before his breakfast gets cold."

 

His breakfast won't get cold. The Capitol people are keeping everything piping hot. But Rory should be here. I hope he's all right. I keep forgetting that he's younger than Prim—twelve instead of thirteen—and that despite all the training, there was always a possibility that it wouldn't be him.

 

My worry must show on my face, because Effie puts a hand on my shoulder. "I made a call last night. I know I shouldn't have, but—" She glances around the table as if she expects someone to reprimand her. "Katniss, your mother says Posy is fine. A little bruised, but fine."

 

I take Effie's hand and squeeze it. "Thank you," I say. "He should know that."

 

"I'll tell him." She pats my hand and leaves the car.

 

"She won't get in trouble for that, will she?" I ask Haymitch.

 

"I doubt it," he says. "They'd have to have a reason, and something as inocuous as this..."

 

I dig into my breakfast.

 

"I'm glad Posy's all right," Prim says. "I was worried."

 

"I hope it helps Rory," Peeta says. None of us say it, but we really can't have Rory crying anymore.

 

A moment later, Rory comes bounding into the dining car, grinning. "Did she tell you about Posy? She's all right!"

 

"Said she would be," Prim says, punching him lightly in the arm, all traces of her earlier worry gone.

 

Rory flops into the chair beside her. The attendant brings him his breakfast, and he starts shoveling it in.

 

I grab his wrist. "Slow down or you'll make yourself sick."

 

Effie reappears and takes her place. She smiles fondly at Rory and Prim, then picks up her knife and fork and daintily cuts her egg.

 

"I expect we'll be arriving any minute," she says.

 

"Then what happens?" Rory asks.

 

"Then you get prepped for the chariot rides," Peeta says.

 

Haymitch sits back. "When we get off this train," he says, "we'll be handing you over to your stylists—Cinna and Portia—and their teams. You are not going to like what they do to you—at least the first part—but do not resist. Got it?"

 

I grin at Peeta. It's almost the exact same speech Haymitch gave us last year.

 

"And what about the chariot ride?" Prim asks. "What do we do for that? What's are mood?"

 

"Cinna and Portia will guide you through that," Peeta says.

 

"But hold hands," I say. "Definitely hold hands."

 

Haymitch nods. "It's not the most original thing, thanks to Peeta and Katniss, but you can bet Cecelia's kids will be doing it, and you want to present yourself as a team."

 

"All of you, remember that," Effie says. "We are a team."

 

The windows of the train go dark as we plunge into the tunnel under the mountains around the Capitol. I feel us going up an incline. Prim rushes to the window to get her first glimpse of the Capitol in real life.

 

We come out of the tunnel, and she gasps. "Wow! It's so... big! And colorful!"

 

She is mesmerized.

 

Outside the train, there is a sudden upswing in noise as people see Prim. She waves and beams at them, then reaches back, grabs Rory by the shirt, and hauls him out of the chair and over to the window.

 

Rory resists. "I'm still eating," he says through a mouthful of pancake.

 

"Think about Posy," Prim says. "Think about what she'll think when she sees you on television looking all excited to see the Capitol."

 

I have a feeling Posy would be more impressed with the amount of food Rory is able to cram into his mouth, but I don't say that, because Prim's words have done the trick. Rory joins her at the window, grinning and waving.

 

"Speaking of holding hands," Haymitch says, looking from me to Peeta.

 

"You can't be serious, Haymitch," I say.

 

"Yes, I can."

 

"Katniss, he's right," says Peeta.

 

"Of course I'm right. Getting those kids sponsors—this whole thing—is going to depend just as much on you two as them. I know we've been focusing on training them, but if you two aren't stuck to each other like glue from here on in, we're going to have all sorts of problems."

 

"Yesterday, at the reaping," I say. I am feeling sick that while my sister and pretend-cousin's lives are on the line, I am being expected to keep up this romance act. But of course I am. Why didn't I see this coming?

 

"People will overlook that," Effie says. "You were obviously very distressed, Katniss. Your sister and cousin were just chosen as tributes. And then those awful—I mean, that awful incident—I mean, I'm sorry, but that's what I think of it." She glances around again as if waiting for one of us to scold her. "The point is, as long as you are together, romantically, going forward, no one will care about the reaping. Just remember, we are a team."

 

The train pulls into the station, and we disembark. We are immediately engulfed in the Capitol, the sheer roar of it, the exotic smells, the bright colors. I remember the shock of this moment for me last year, and I keep a hand on Prim's back to steady her against it all. I notice Effie is guiding Rory, and I smile. She seems to have taken a real shine to him. I wonder, for the first time, who Effie is outside of the Hunger Games.

 

Capitol officials lead us to a car with blacked-out windows, and we are escorted to the remake center. We board the elevator as a group and shoot up past the giant stable that is the first floor and into the center proper. When the doors open, the prep teams are waiting.

 

"Do not resist," Haymitch warns Rory and Prim in an undertone as we step off the elevator.

 

Venia, Flavius, and Octavia surround Prim. They embrace her, kiss her cheeks, ask how she is holding up. They have met her a few times—at the start of the victory tour and then later for the photo shoot in the wedding gowns. And they feel like they know her from all the interviews she's had to give about me. I catch Flavius's eye, and he comes over and embraces me.

 

"I am so sorry about this, Katniss," he says, and I feel like he really means it, like he's really unhappy about the way these Games are turning out. "But don't worry. We'll take excellent care of her. Just wait until you see Cinna's costumes for her. They are spectacular."

 

"Thank you," I say. I've been saying that a lot lately. I'll probably have to keep saying it too.

 

They sweep Prim away, and it is only then that I realize that Rory has not received the same treatment. He's hanging back uncertainly while Portia's prep team greets Peeta. I nudge him forward. "Go on," I say, "introduce yourself. Make them notice you."

 

"I'm not good at that, Katniss," he mumbles. He almost sounds panicked.

 

"Think of Posy," I say. I might have to keep saying this too. We might have a problem. I need to talk to Peeta.

 

"Tell her you like her tattoos," I say, nodding to a dark-skinned woman who has ruddy gold flames tattooed around her eyes and across her hands.

 

Rory steps up beside Peeta. I fight the urge to get on his other side so he feels more secure. He has to do this himself.

 

"Hello," he says, when there's a lull in the conversation. "I'm—I'm Rory."

 

They look at him coolly. They must be remembering the crying. They must be thinking of the countless tributes they've taken care of over the years who have died. He might be related to me, but he's not victor material, they're thinking. Better not get attached.

 

But then Rory smiles at the woman with the tattoos. "I—I really like your tattoos," he says. "Especially your hands. Are they because of last year's Games?"

 

"Well aren't you sweet," the woman says. "They are for last year's Games yes. Fire is all the rage thanks to Cinna and Portia's designs. Mockingjays too, but that's thanks to Katniss here."

 

I wince.

 

"Do I get to get tattoos?" Rory asks. He smiles angelically at the preps.

 

"Goodness no." They laugh in that high-pitched, almost hysterical way people in the Capitol laugh. "You are far too young."

 

"And your mother would have my head, Rory," I say.

 

"But, if you win," the woman with the tattoos says, "you can do whatever you want."

 

"I'd get flowers," Rory says, "for my sister. Posy."

 

They practically swoon over this.

 

"Well, let's get started," the man says. "Lots of work to do before lunch." Rory waves at me and Peeta as they sweep him away too.

 

"That was interesting," I say.

 

Peeta nods. "I was worried there for a minute, but once you get him to talk, he really wins people over. Look at Effie. She loves him."

 

"You just have to get him to talk." I look around. "Speaking of which, where is Effie? And Haymitch? Did we miss something?"

 

But before we can get too worried, Cinna and Portia appear with clothes for us to change into. We have to look our best tonight too. Tonight will be our first chance to meet with the sponsors.

 

Cinna and Portia embrace us, then show us to rooms where we can change.

 

I slip into the dress he has picked out for me, a simple, short-sleeved orange gown that falls to my shins and puffs at the shoulders. It has red and gold flames embroidered at the skirt and on the sleeves, and a gently scooped neckline. My hair is loose but held back from my face by an orange headband. Thin red and gold ribbons trail from the headband and add streaks of fire to my hair. My sandals have only small heels, and I have minimal makeup and no jewelry except for my mockingjay pin, which Cinna pins on at the last minute.

 

"Beautiful," Cinna says. He turns me to face the mirror, and I have to agree. "How are you holding up?" he asks. We haven't had much time to talk since the Quell announcement, especially since we both knew without needing to discuss it that the phone line was tapped.

 

"I'm—" I try to say I'm all right, but it's a downright lie. I'm not all right. I'm fighting through it because I have to, but I'm not all right, and there's no way I can be all right. I am in charge of shepherding my younger sister and my best friend's brother to their certain deaths. There is nothing all right about that.

 

Cinna takes my hand and leads me out onto the remake center's verandah. A moment later, Peeta and Portia arrive. With the noise of the city below us, if we keep our voices low, it will be very difficult for someone to hear us.

 

Peeta is wearing dark pants, sturdy boots, and an orange shirt with red and gold flames to match my dress. When he arrives beside me, he takes my hand and squeezes it.

 

"Katniss," Cinna says, "this is going to be bad. There's nothing I can say that will change that. But"—and here he lowers his voice even further and speaks slowly, as if he is choosing every word—"there's more hanging on this than you know. I can't guarantee anything, but I will say that we are all working to get Prim home. This isn't over."

 

"I know," I say. I have a feeling he's saying more than the actual words, but I can't figure it out.

 

"Effie was talking about matching tokens for them," Peeta says, "and us. Mockingjays. Katniss thought that wasn't a good idea."

 

"Katniss is right," Cinna says. "That would be a bad idea. Prim is not you, Katniss, and we're going to want to highlight those differences, make her special in her own right."

 

"Makes sense," I say. "Prim mentioned some other kind of bird."

 

"Smart girl," Cinna says. He smiles crookedly. "That's just what I was thinking. She'll be replacing you as fashion designer, mark my words."

 

"So you have a plan?" I ask.

 

Now he grins outright at me. "Of course I have a plan. But I'm not going to tell you." He waves us back into the remake center. "Now, I need to go see to your sister, and there are reporters and sponsors for you two to meet. Off you go now. And remember, you're a team."

 

Why does everyone keep saying that? Do they think we're going to forget?

 

Cinna and Portia stride back into the remake center.

 

"What was that about?" I say.

 

Peeta just shakes his head. "We better get going. Haymitch and Effie are probably waiting for us."

 

"Chins up," I say, immitating Effie's Capitol accent. "Smile. You're on camera." I link my arm through Peeta's and we stride back inside, through the remake center, and back out onto the street to meet Haymitch and, just as Cinna predicted, a horde of reporters.

 

Immediately the cameras start clicking and flashing. Peeta's arm tightens convulsively around me, and I press myself into his side. I glance around, trying to spot Haymitch, but he isn't out here yet.

 

"Katniss," one reporter shouts, "are you helping to design the costumes for Primrose and Rory?"

 

Oh, right, my stupid supposed talent. Every victor is supposed to have one, to fill the time that they no longer need to occupy with work or school. My only real talents are hunting—which is illegal—and singing—which I would never do for the Capitol. Effie was about ready to strangle me—maybe she thought I might start tapdancing or something—when Cinna stepped in and offered to mentor my budding desire to design clothes. Code for: he would design clothes and pretend I'd done it, because I had—and have—no desire to design clothes whatsoever. But I still have to play along.

 

I smile at the reporter, force a laugh. "Oh no. I'm leaving that in Cinna's much more competent hands." Peeta squeezes me. I've done well. I think.

 

"Do you have any insight into the District 12 costumes for the tribute parade tonight?" another reporter asks. "Will there be flames?"

 

Before I can answer, someone else asks, "Katniss, how does it feel to have your sister and your cousin as tributes in this year's Games?"

 

"Are you prepared to mentor them?" asks another. And then questions are bouncing like popcorn popping on the stove.

 

"What is Primrose's strategy going to be?"

 

"Why was Rory crying at the reaping? Is it a strategy? What would you say to sponsors who won't want to bet on him?"

 

"How does it feel to have both your sister and your cousin playing in this year's Games?"

 

They already asked that one.

 

"Katniss, is it true that Peeta is mentoring Primrose instead of you?"

 

I look up at Peeta. "How do they know that?" I mouthe.

 

"I don't know. Better answer it."

 

I turn back to the reporters, and they fall silent. "This is obviously going to be a very difficult time for me," I say, "with both Prim and Rory in the arena this year. It will be a very difficult time for us." They have no idea, these Capitol idiots, what it's like to have the fear of the reaping looming over you. They have no idea what it's like to watch someone you love go off to die for crimes committed seventy-five years ago. How can they even ask me this? I fight to keep my anger off my face, to keep smiling. "It would be too difficult—impossible—for me to mentor both Prim and Rory, as much as I would like to. But Peeta and Prim are close. Peeta loves her the same way I love her, and I trust him with this. He will take care of her. So, yes, Peeta will be Prim's primary mentor for the Games."

 

"We are a team," Peeta says, and the cameras turn to him. "We will always be a team. And as hard as this is going to be, I am going to be there to support Katniss—we are going to support each other—and we are going to get through this."

 

When I turn, stretch up on tiptoe, and kiss him, it doesn't feel forced at all. Because I know he's right. I am going to need him to hold me up every step of the way.

 

I can actually hear the reporters sigh as we embrace on the steps of the remake center. And then the cameras go mad. We break apart. I can feel my cheeks flaming. Good.

 

"Katniss," someone else calls, "what will you do if you have to choose between Primrose and Rory?"

 

I go cold. It is the question I have been ignoring since the night the Quell was announced. Haymitch said on the victory tour that we would have to make choices. He chose me, because he figured with himself, Peeta, and me all trying to get me home, we might just do it. But Haymitch was only one mentor. This year, we have three, and I thought—foolishly?—that we could take care of Prim and Rory for as long as we can. It sounds awful, but I hoped that someone else would make that decision for me. But now I feel I am a butterfly and they are pinning me to a rock. Who will you choose? If you have to choose between Prim and Rory, Katniss, what will you do?

 

If I choose Rory, I will lose Prim. If I choose Prim, I will lose Rory and—by consequence—Gale, because he will know I did not choose his brother. And even so, it might not matter. I might lose all of them.

 

I am going to cry. "I can't think about that right now," I manage to say, and I bury my face in Peeta's shirt. He strokes my hair. "That really isn't—" he starts, but then there's a stir in the crowd of reporters. Heels click on the stairs behind us.

 

I look up to see Cecelia, the victor from District 8, striding down the stairs in a lilac evening gown—complete with gloves—her hair piled up on top of her head.

 

"Cecelia," a reporter calls, "Cecelia, how does it feel to have two of your children playing in the Hunger Games this year?"

 

"Cecelia, is it true Jason was conceived in the arena? Does he know? Does Calico know?"

 

"Cecelia, what will you do if you have to choose between Jason and Calico once they're in the arena?"

 

Cecelia holds her head high and sweeps past the reporters without a glance their way.

 

"I want to be her when I grow up," I say.

 

"Don't we all." Haymitch has appeared at my elbow. Finally.

 

"Haymitch," a reporter shouts. "Haymitch is it true you've stopped drinking?"

 

"Haymitch, you won the last Quarter Quell, how do you feel about the twist in this Quell?"

 

"Haymitch, how do you feel about Katniss and Peeta as mentors so far. Will you be helping them through the process this first year?"

 

"I most certainly will," Haymitch says. "And I'll be helping to mentor Prim and Rory. We are a team, after all. And the first thing I'm going to teach them is how to avoid getting cornered by you bloodsucking leeches." It's Haymitch—he's been around forever and he's been a whole lot ruder—so none of them are really offended. Haymitch slaps Peeta on the back and then gets in between us, throwing an arm around each of our shoulders. "Can't you tell they're just trying to sneak off for some alone time now that Katniss's mother isn't around?"

 

That gets a good laugh.

 

"But I made a promise," Haymitch says. "I wouldn't let Katniss get herself into trouble. We have other things to focus on right now. Places to go. People to meet. Please excuse us."

 

We are saved.

 

"Thanks," I whisper as he steers us away and down the street.

 

He lets me go and lets Peeta take my hand again.

 

"You two were holding up all right, but I thought you could use a rescue before things got out of hand. Best to avoid the reporters if you can. Act like Cecelia. And if you can't, act mysterious. Everything is a surprise and you don't want to ruin it."

 

"Haymitch?"

 

"Yeah, Katniss." I know he's taking me seriously because he doesn't call me sweetheart. Good.

 

"How do you choose a tribute? If I have to, how do I do it?"

 

Peeta's grip on my hand becomes so tight it is almost painful, but I don't pull away.

 

Haymitch pats my shoulder. "Odds are, you won't have to, Katniss," he says. "Usually the Games take care of that problem just fine."

 

I feel worse.

 

"You'll find you don't have a whole lot of control once the Games start. You need to be prepared for that, both of you. You can send Prim and Rory water and food and medicine, a knife, anything, and those things might keep them alive, but when it comes down to it, it's up to them. They have to win over the sponsors. They have to survive the other tributes and whatever the Gamemakers throw at them." He falls silent, but there's more to it than that. Because it's pretty obvious that President Snow will be gunning for Prim—probably Rory too.

 

"Haymitch, was Cecelia's son really conceived in the arena?" Peeta asks. He's trying to change the subject, and he's not doing a very subtle job of it, but we all let him do it.

 

"Every Game has its secrets," Haymitch says.

 

I actually laugh. "The whole thing is on camera. How can there be secrets?"

 

"You'd be surprised," Haymitch says. "There are always places where it's hard to get cameras, or hard to get a good shot of someone, especially in the dark. Anyway, there have always been rumors about Cecelia and her district partner in her Games. They definitely had something, but they didn't use it the way you two did. He died a few days in, protecting her from the careers. But up until then, they were glued to each other. She was a mess after that and became pretty brutal. Well, you saw the tape. But her parents had another boy in mind for her to marry back home—they came out and said it when she made it into the final eight. And when she got home, she certainly married that boy right quick."

 

"And had a baby," I say.

 

"But couldn't the Gamemakers have confirmed a pregnancy after the Games?" Peeta asks.

 

"Probably. But probably they preferred keeping it a secret and letting people gossip." He drops his voice. "Wait until the kid was old enough and make sure he was reaped, and then bring it all up again."

 

"Which is what they're doing now," I say.

 

"Exactly."

 

We are walking the route the tributes will take later in their chariots. Already, we can see people lining up on the sides of the colorfully tiled streets, claiming places for the parade. When they see us, they wave and cheer, and we wave and smile back. I notice the people moving through the crowd, trading money for slips of paper. When it comes to the Games, they bet on everything.

 

"I have good money on fire tonight, Katniss!" someone shouts to me. "Tell me there'll be fire!"

 

I smile and shake my head. "But if I told you, that would ruin all the fun," I say.

 

"Are we allowed to be just out here walking around like this?" Peeta asks.

 

"Today we are," Haymitch says. "It will become much more formal once training starts, but for now the possible sponsors and the victors mingle in the city circle outside the training center."

 

We are almost to the city circle when the victors from District 11 catch up with us. Haymitch grins at them.

 

"Katniss, Peeta, these are Chaff and Cedar."

 

I recognize Chaff as the one-armed victor who we usually saw drinking copiously with Haymitch on older Games. He cuffs Peeta lightly around the head and then embraces me as if we are all old friends. Cedar, the dark, broad-faced woman, also embraces me.

 

"Our kids like the look of yours," Chaff says to Haymitch as we start walking again. "What do you say? Allies?"

 

"Prim definitely said she wanted to get to know Ivy," Peeta says.

 

Since when? Why isn't Prim saying any of this to me?

 

"We'll see how they get on in training, won't we," Haymitch says.

 

"Fair enough," Chaff says. "Of course, there's no guaranteeing Aspen won't be an idiot about it. Sorry, Cedar."

 

Cedar just shakes her head, her mouth twisted down. "He's always been a handful. There's only so much I can do about it at this point." She turns to me. "Listen, Katniss, the families of last year's tributes—don't worry, they're fine. You each gave them a month of your winnings, and they are very grateful, and they're combining their resources to give one of those months to sponsor Primrose."

 

I stop, my mouth falling open. "No. They can't do that. That money was for them."

 

"One month of winnings between two families is more than enough for them to get by this year," Cedar says. "After they saw Primrose at the reaping, that incident with the peacekeeper, they... well, they called this morning, and it's all set up. You're to use the money for whatever you see fit for Primrose."

 

I just gape at her. Why does everything keep coming back to Prim biting that peacekeeper? What is going to happen to her because of it? What does it mean to the people in the districts? Why am I even asking that? I know what it means. Even more than my trick with the berries, it is a sign of rebellion. And I don't want anyone using Prim to start a rebellion.

 

Peeta steps in. "Thank you. And thank them too, please. This is huge for Prim. Of course, they know that. If there's anything we can do to repay them..."

 

Cedar smiles. "There will be," she says.

 

I throw a panicked look at Haymitch. I do not want anyone starting a rebellion because Prim bit a stupid peacekeeper.

 

Haymitch pats my shoulder. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

 

We enter the city circle. It is already packed with people. I spy Caesar Flickerman up on the podium, already narrating. "And here they are!" he shouts, pointing at us. "Our starcrossed lovers from District 12!"

 

Peeta and I beam and thrust our linked hands into the air. The crowd goes wild, and I see our faces projected on screens around the circle.

 

"And we have Haymitch Abernathy! Winner of the fiftieth Hunger Games, the second Quarter Quell!"

 

More cheers as the camera shifts to Haymitch, who scowls at everyone, because at this point it's almost required of him.

 

"And we have Cedar and Chaff! Victors from District 11! Welcome all, to the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games!"

 

Cedar and Chaff peel away from us as people flock around us, mostly prospective sponsors. They all start by congratulating us on our spectacular victory last year. They express excitement at the possibility of sponsoring Prim. They say they look forward to working with us once the Games get underway. Peeta has his notebook out and is making lists of possible sponsors who we will be able contact once the Games officially begin. Prim has many. But so far, Rory has none.

 

"What about Rory?" I say when someone else voluteers to sponsor Prim.

 

"Well..." The woman shifts on her feet uncertainly. "The thing is, Primrose has shown she has some fight in her, and obviously she must have learned from you, Katniss. And I think many of us want to sponsor Rory, but right now, we have some significant reservations about that. We just don't see the same promise in him as Primrose. Of course," she adds quickly, "of course, we are still at the beginning." She pats my arm. "Anything can change. I'm sure Rory will pick up once training starts."

 

"He will," Peeta says. "Don't worry."

 

But when the woman leaves, he turns to me, and he says, "We might have a problem."


	7. Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prim and Rory participate in the tribute parade and training.

Chapter Seven

Prim

 

"Are you doing all right, sweetheart?" Flavius asks.

 

"I'm fine. Thank you."

 

In truth, I am feeling acutely vulnerable. I am lying on a table, covered by a thin robe that they keep taking off. I have spent the last several hours having all of my hair—except on my head—being waxed and plucked—they even reshaped my eyebrows. They washed and dried and lotioned my hair. They cut and filed and polished my nails. They have seen every inch of me there is to see, and they have clucked over me, and they have alternately wailed about poor Katniss and poor me and chatted about how exciting this year's Games are going to be. I don't like lying here with them prancing around me, like I'm not a human being. Normally, nakedness doesn't bother me. I'm a healer, after all. I deal with naked people all the time. It's just, usually I'm not the naked one, and I always treat the people on our kitchen table with much more respect than they have been treating me.

 

"You're such a trooper," Venia says, fluffing her turquoise hair. "Certainly much better than your sister."

 

"Now, Venia," Octavia says, "that's not true. Katniss did fine the first time we prepped her. She was just filthy."

 

"And hairy," Flavius says. "But you're much better, sweetheart. Katniss must have learned from us and taken good care of you."

 

"Of course she did," Venia says. A tear comes to her eye. "Oh, poor Katniss. This must be so hard for her." And we're back to this.

 

"And you are just so brave," Octavia says. "You know, you're going to win this, Prim. I'm certain of it."

 

"Oh just imagine it," Flavius says, "both of our girls, victors."

 

"What are the latest odds again?" Venia asks.

 

I tune them out. I don't know how Katniss can stand it, but she actually likes these people. They are sincerely trying to help me, I suppose. They're just so ridiculous and idiotic and so cruel in their idiocy.

 

They rub me down with a lotion that stings at first but then soothes my aching skin. Then they pull me off the table and walk around me, examining every inch of my naked body, weilding tweezers.

 

"There's one!" Venia says. It's all the warning I get before she swoops at my feet like a bird of prey. There's a sharp tug and a hair on my big toe is ripped out.

 

"Lift your arms up for me, darling," Flavius says. I do so, and he yanks out a few stray hairs from my armpits. "Excellent. You can lower them."

 

I pull my hair around my shoulders and shiver.

 

"Are you cold?" Octavia asks.

 

"A little," I say. "It's chilly in here. We don't have air conditioning in District 12, even in the victors village."

 

"Oh, summer must be awful there! How do you survive it?"

 

I try to think of a diplomatic response, but nothing comes to mind, so I just smile at them, which seems to be good enough.

 

"Well, we're all done here. We'll call Cinna, and then you can get dressed."

 

They each kiss my cheek, and they flock out the door, chattering happily.

 

I hug myself, shivering even harder. A moment later, Cinna comes in. I've met him once or twice, but I never really talked to him. Katniss talks to him at least once a week on the phone. They are good friends. But I don't know him at all, and I feel even more uncomfortable standing here naked before him.

 

I will say that, after the prep team, Cinna looks surprisingly normal. He has close-cropped brown hair that doesn't seem to be dyed at all, and barely any makeup. Just some gold eyeliner that I actually like. It brings out the gold flecks in his eyes. And he's holding a blanket for me. My anger at the prep team thaws when I see it.

 

"Hello, Prim," he says.

 

"Hello," I say. My voice sounds small in the sterile white room.

 

"Just give me a minute," he says. "I know you're cold."

 

He walks around me. He doesn't touch me, but he takes in every inch of me with his eyes. He asks me to lower my arms, and I do. Not that there's much underneath for him to see.

 

"Okay," he says. "Why don't you put your robe on, and we'll have lunch."

 

I pull the thin cotton robe on, and he drapes the blanket around my shoulders. Then he leads me through a door into a sitting room. There's a low table between two red velvet couches. The walls are paneled in rich wood except for one wall that is entirely windows. I pause to stare out at the bright city. I still can't believe how huge it is.

 

"Sit down," Cinna says, and I do. He takes the couch opposite me. "I lowered the air conditioning for you. Let me know if you're still cold." He presses a button on the table, and the top splits. Another tabletop rises up, bearing our lunch. There's a bowl of steaming broth and fancy rolls shaped like flowers. I drink my broth down and feel instantly warmer.

 

Next, Cinna dishes out lamb stew with plums on a bed of wild rice.

 

"This is the one Katniss said she liked?" I ask.

 

"The exact one. The cooks thought you might enjoy trying it."

 

I try the stew. "It's good," I say. It is delicious, actually. No wonder Katniss likes it so much. I have to remember my manners and not shovel it in, but I do eat three helpings of it.

 

Next comes a pot of melted chocolate with fruit and bread on sticks to dip into it. This is so incredible that I just start spooning the chocolate into my mouth, and Cinna actually orders me a second one.

 

At last, I sit back, warm and full.

 

"Now, Prim," Cinna says, "I have to say you're holding up very well."

 

I nod. "Well, I knew it was coming."

 

"Knowing something is coming doesn't make it any easier," he says. He studies me for a moment. "Is something bothering you?"

 

"No," I say, but then I reconsider. "Yes. Besides this... whole thing, I mean." I take another spoonful of chocolate to stall, but it doesn't taste as sweet. I set the pot down. "It's just, everyone keeps saying that I'm going to do well because I'm Katniss's sister, because I must have the same skills or the same—I don't know."

 

Cinna leans across the table and takes my hands in his. "Prim, you are not your sister," he says. "You know it. I know it. Katniss knows it. But this is not a bad thing. This is what makes you who you are, and that is very important. Over the next few weeks, you're going to need to hold onto who you are—not who Katniss is, but who you are."

 

"But everyone says—the reporters, the preps, yesterday you even wanted me to dress like Katniss did last year—"

 

"That is because the people of the Capitol know you through Katniss. You are the sister she went to the Games to save."

 

"I wish people would stop saying that," I mutter, but he ignores me.

 

"Yesterday, I wanted to highlight the similarities between you and Katniss. I wanted to remind the Capitol who you are and why they should care about you—because they care about Katniss. But from here on in, it's all about you. Your talents. Your strength. Your personal spark."

 

"I haven't got a spark," I say.

 

"Yes you do," he says, but he doesn't tell me what it might be.

 

"So, for the parade, you're not going to dress me up in fire?"

 

"Well, there will be fire," he says, "but it will be different. Prim, what do you know about phoenixes?"

 

"Nothing," I say.

 

Cinna smiles. "The phoenix was a mythical bird, an immortal bird. When it is time for the phoenix to die, she bursts into flames, but she is reborn from the ashes."

 

I see what he is getting at, the beauty of it, the simplicity, and I smile right back. "I like that."

 

"I thought you would." He stands. "Let's get started."

 

#

 

Four hours later, we meet Portia and Rory and take the elevator down to the bottom floor of the remake center, which is actually more like a giant stable. I spy other tributes getting into their chariots, assisted by stylists. It seems other stylists have tried to copy Cinna's ideas. At least it sort of makes sense for the District 3 kids to be covered in blinking lights—they make electronics in 3. But the poor District 10 tributes are dressed like cows with belts of fire around their middle. Are they supposed to be roast beef?

 

It is nearly dusk, and the weather has turned overcast. A ceiling of gray clouds is lowering over the city. Rory and I are going to shine.

 

We are phoenixes.

 

I am dressed all in gold—a gold wrap around blouse with short, ruffly sleeves and a flouncy gold skirt that flows and swirls to my ankles. Scarlet ribbons dangle from my sleeves down along my arms. My hair is done in two braids, the way I will wear it in the arena. The ends of the braids are tied with scarlet ribbons that hang all the way down to my waste. I have a headdress of red ribbons and feathers, like the crest of a bird, and wings of scarlet and orange and gold spread from the back of my blouse as wide as my arms if I hold them straight out to my sides.

 

I touch the ribbons at the ends of my braids. "You're sure it's not real fire?" I ask Cinna for maybe the tenth time. Cinna is going to light my wings, my headdress, and the ribbons hanging from my sleeves and hair. I am very fond of my hair. And my arms. All of me, actually. I might well die in the coming days, but I'd like to stay alive as long as I can, and burning to death is not how I want to go, given the choice.

 

Cinna smiles. "It's perfectly safe, Prim. We tested it on ourselves. Trust me."

 

I nod. But Rory doesn't look convinced. He is dressed very similar to me, except he is wearing a gold tunic and leggings, and he has extra red ribbons hanging from his headdress—since his hair isn't long. Cinna has deliberately dressed us in old-fashioned clothes, from a time called the middle ages, to reinforce the idea of the ancient, mythical birds that we are. The point of all the ribbons, Cinna says, is to give the appearance that we are engulfed in flames.

 

Since we won't be able to sit with our huge wings, we will have to stand on the bench in our chariot, but Cinna promises it will be smooth. "The height will be good for you, too," he says as he helps us up. "Just remember, keep your feet apart. Don't lock your knees. Grab this bar in front of you if you think you're going to fall. But it would be better if you don't," he adds.

 

Excellent. Another thing to worry about. If we don't burn to death, we might fall off. At least, if we do fall, we're at the back of the parade, so we don't have to worry about being trampled by the next chariot in line. It's not a very comforting thought.

 

From up here, though, I see what Cinna means about the height. Standing, we are taller than all the other sitting tributes. I can see them stealing envious, angry looks at us.

 

"Ten seconds," Portia says. She lights a torch, and Cinna jumps up on the chariot.

 

The first chariot, drawn by snow white horses and baring the tributes from District 1 in their splendid silks and jewels, begins to move.

 

Cinna takes the torch from Portia and lights our wings, our headdresses, and the hanging ribbons. Rory grabs my hand and crushes my fingers. I crush his fingers right back. I shut my eyes, seeing the glow behind my eyelids, waiting for the pain. But I feel nothing.

 

Cinna tucks his fingers under my chin, making me lift my head. "Smile," he says in my ear. "They're going to love you."

 

And then he jumps off the chariot, and our four coal-black horses step forward. The chariot lurches, and I nearly lose my balance. I seize the bar in front of me as we move forward through the stable at an easy walk.

 

The door is ahead. I can see the darkening sky and the crowd of people. I adjust my stance, grip Rory's hand even tighter, and let go of the bar in front of us.

 

The horses pick up speed outside, but it is smooth, just like Cinna promised. What is most jarring is the noise that engulfs us. The anthem is blaring from every direction, and the crowd is going wild. I see the shock, and then the wonder, and then the glee breaking across people's faces as they recognize us. They scream and wave. Flowers rain down on us. I wave back, reach to catch flowers, throw kisses. I beam at everyone.

 

"This is insane!" Rory yells in my ear.

 

"I know!" I yell back. "Isn't it great?"

 

"You're insane!"

 

People are screaming our names. "Primrose! Prim! Rory!"

 

And then a chant starts, growing, building, almost blocking out the anthem. "District 12! District 12! District 12!"

 

Too soon, we arrive in front of the training center. We do a lap of the city circle and stop, twelve chariots positioned in a half-moon to hear President Snow's opening address. I see Caesar Flickerman in a stand in front of the training center, commentating as always. Then I spy Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch in the stands behind Caesar with the other mentors. I wave to Katniss, and she smiles at me. Haymitch gives me a thumbs up.

 

"Welcome!" President Snow calls out. "Welcome, citizens of the Capitol! Welcome citizens of the districts of Panem! And welcome, tributes! Welcome to the seventy-fifth annual Hunger Games! Our third Quarter Quell!"

 

The crowd cheers.

 

President snow goes on to talk about the Treaty of Treason again, about the Games, about the Quell. Finally, he salutes the tributes assembled before him. "Happy Hunger Games. And may the odds be ever in your favor."

 

The chariots begin a final lap around the city circle, and just like last year, the cameras stay trained on the District 12 chariot. I can see us on the screen, literally outshining the rest.

 

And then we are pulling up to the doors of the training center, and Cinna and Portia are wielding fire extinguishers and helping us down, and Haymitch and Katniss and Peeta and Effie are all sweeping us inside.

 

"That was incredible!" Effie says. "Really spectacular! Cinna, you are a genius!"

 

"What are you supposed to be, exactly?" Peeta asks.

 

"Phoenixes," I say. I'm still smiling broadly. "They're legendary firebirds, Cinna said. When it's time for them to die, they burst into flames and are reborn from the ashes. So they never really die at all. Isn't it brilliant?"

 

"It's perfect," Katniss says.

 

The lobby of the training center is vast and tiled. Footsteps and talk echo loudly. The doors out into the city are paneled in thick glass, and the moment we are through them, they shut behind us with a resounding click. The training center will be our home—and prison—until the Games officially begin.

 

Along the right-hand wall is a bank of elevators. Haymitch leads us over to one that is already half-full.

 

"Haymitch, we won't all fit," Effie says, "especially with their costumes. We should wait for an empty one."

 

"It's all right, Effie," Cinna says. "We'll let them go up now, and we'll get on the next one."

 

"All right," Effie says with a heavy sigh, as though allowing Haymitch to take the lead is setting a bad precedent. Rory, Katniss, Peeta, and I follow Haymitch into the elevator.

 

Finnick O'Daire, the victor from District 4, is inside with his tributes—the girl Bree and the blind boy whose name I can't remember. A moment later, we are joined by Johanna Mason—the victor from District 7—without her tributes. At the last minute, the girl from District 1—Ebony—the one who volunteered—squeezes in and hits the 1 button.

 

She's wearing a tiered skirt of plum silk, and there really isn't enough room for her. She shoves me out of her way. I fall back against the elevator wall, and I feel the thin metal ribbing of my wings crack beneath me. My wings crumple.

 

The elevator stops with a ding on the first floor and Ebony strides out. She glances back over her shoulder. "You look ridiculous, you know."

 

The doors slide shut and we move upward again. I straighten up and try to fix my wings, but they're broken.

 

"Well," the blind boy says, breaking the tense silence, "she is totally wrong. I think you look great."

 

"Shut up, Kieran," Bree says.

 

"But I really think that," he says. "I, on the other hand, probably really do look ridiculous. What am I supposed to be anyway? A jellyfish? My stylist got all offended when I asked."

 

"You're a pearl," Bree says.

 

"You know," Peeta says, "if you press on coal, it turns to pearl."

 

"No it doesn't," Bree says.

 

Peeta and Katniss roar with laughter.

 

"That's what Effie said about them before their Games last year," Haymitch says. "She was going around telling everyone they were pearls."

 

"Sounds just like Effie," Finnick says. The elevator stops on the fourth floor. "This is us. Kieran, my arm's right here." He guides Kieran out of the elevator, and Bree follows close behind.

 

Once the doors close, Johanna turns to me. "So, Prim. What does peacekeeper taste like?"

 

My cheeks flame almost as much as my costume and I duck my head.

 

"Come on, girl, you've got to take credit for it. You know Caesar's going to ask you about it during your interview. And what are they going to do to you that they aren't already doing?"

 

"Shouldn't you be lecturing your own tributes, Johanna," Haymitch says.

 

"I ditched them," Johanna says. "For a minute at least. Mark's all right, I suppose, but Ennis is a whiny, disgusting brat." She still has scratches on her cheeks from when her cousin raked her face with her fingernails at the reaping yesterday. They look raw and painful. "As if it's my fault we're related."

 

I open my mouth to say I have something that will help her face, but then I realize I don't and close up.

 

The elevator stops at 7, but Johanna doesn't get out. "You know, maybe I'll ride up with you guys and then come back down."

 

"Get out," Haymitch says.

 

"Fine." Johanna flips her glossy brown hair and departs. At the last minute, she pauses, just like Ebony, and looks back at me. "She was wrong, by the way. You look great."

 

The doors slide shut and we glide upward again.

 

"Well," Peeta says. "That was interesting."

 

We arrive on the twelfth floor. We have a few minutes before dinner, so Rory and I go into our rooms to take off our costumes. Katniss follows me to help with my broken wings.

 

"Do you think Cinna will be able to fix them?" I ask, holding them up. One wing hangs sadly from my hands, crumpled in all the wrong places.

 

"I'm sure of it," Katniss says. She takes the wings from me and lays them on the bed. "Turn around. I'll unlace you." I turn, and she undoes the laces holding my blouse in place. "You were beautiful tonight," she says. "And you did so well."

 

"It's all thanks to Cinna," I say. "His costumes really are amazing. I mean, I knew they were—I saw them on you—but wow. Just, wow." And then I can't help myself. "You never said he was crazy, though."

 

"Did I forget to mention that?" Katniss says. She pokes me in the side.

 

"Hey!" I twist around to poke her back, but she dodges me.

 

"Gotta be faster than that!"

 

I leap at her, knocking her back onto the bed and tickling her ribs.

 

"Okay, okay, you win." She rolls away from me, laughing.

 

I go to the wardrobe and stare at the dizzying array of buttons. "Whatever happened to just picking out clothes?" I say.

 

"Wait until you see the showers," Katniss says.

 

I finally decide on a light blue blouse and brown pants, and hit the right buttons. I decide to keep the red ribbons at the ends of my braids, though.

 

Once I've pulled on the impossibly soft clothes, Katniss comes over and straightens my shirt. "I'm really proud of you," she says. "You've been doing so well."

 

"Thanks," I say. I look away. My throat closes up. "I'm sorry, Katniss."

 

"For what?"

 

"I haven't been very nice to you lately. I know this is hard for you, and I haven't trusted you. I keep going to Peeta instead of you. I know that hurts you. It's just—it's just I'm scared. I'm really scared. And I didn't want you to know that, because I didn't want you to think I couldn't do this and just give up on me. So, I'm sorry."

 

She pulls me into her arms and holds me so tight it hurts, but I don't want her to let me go. At last, she says, "You're going to be fine."

 

#

 

Katniss leaves me to explore my new room. I play with the settings on the windows and order all sorts of food. I decide that I want to try everything on the menu before the Games start. So I sit on my bed munching coconut mango fritters and veal with lemongrass and olives, trying not to think about anything but how good it is, until Effie knocks on my door to call me for dinner.

 

#

 

Dinner is extravagant. There are tiny roast birds filled with creamy orange sauce on a bed of asparagus spears and roasted pine nuts. There are small pearly potato dumpling things I have never seen before in a black truffel sauce. Rory and I each have two helpings of everything. We are all chatting about how well the parade went. Even Rory, once he got over his fear, seems to have enjoyed it. And the people of the Capitol love us—Effie says it over and over again. We made such a splash. We will be unforgettable.

 

The only sour note—besides the reason we're all here—are the two avoxes, the mute servants who wait on us. The girl has long red hair, and the man—I recognize him. The peacekeeper Darius. Katniss said he tried to interfere when Thread whipped Gale a few months ago. And so they cut out his tongue and set him to serve us—the tributes of District 12. The avoxes are eerily silent and efficient, but Darius still finds a moment to give my shoulder a discreet squeeze.

 

And then the girl avox brings in the dessert, a huge egg of molded sky-blue sugar. Darius pours a sparkling white wine into everyone's glasses.

 

Cinna lifts his glass to us. "To Primrose and Rory, our new phoenixes!" Everyone echoes the toast, and then Cinna lifts a lighter and lights the egg on fire. It blazes for a moment, and then the fire vanishes. The sugar has turned crystal clear, and inside the egg are two chocolate phoenixes with iced red and gold and royal blue feathers.

 

Everyone claps.

 

"It's amazing," I breathe, leaning close to examine it. "How did they do it?"

 

"I honestly have no idea," Cinna says. "I just brought the idea to the chefs this morning, before you arrived, and they've been working on it all day."

 

"This is incredible," Peeta says. He bends close to examine it too. "Cinna, do you think it's possible for me to meet these chefs at some point? I'd love to learn how to do this. Of course, it would be hard to get the ingredients and tools back home, but maybe if it was part of my talent..."

 

"Peeta," Katniss says, and I recognize the same exasperated tone of her voice that she gets with me whenever I get emotional about an animal. "We aren't here to socialize, remember?"

 

"I remember," Peeta says, but his eyes are still focused on the birds inside the clear sugar egg. "But still..."

 

"There might be some time while the kids are at training tomorrow," Cinna says. "Now that you've met the possible sponsors this morning, not much happens for the mentors until the training scores are released."

 

Peeta reaches out to carefully touch the crystal sugar egg, and it shatters. We both leap backwards as sugar dust rains down on the phoenixes.

 

"It was supposed to do that," Cinna says. "Sorry I didn't warn you."

 

"Oh, it's beautiful!" I say. The phoenixes are now coated with sugar, and it glitters like tiny diamonds in their feathers.

 

"It seems a shame to eat it," Rory says.

 

But eat it we do.

 

When the dessert dishes are cleared away—nearly as sparkling clean as when they were first placed on the table—Effie had to scold me for scooping up bits of chocolate and icing with my fingers, and she would not let Rory lick his plate clean—we move into the living room to watch the recap of the parade. The excitement is wearing off, and I am feeling full and sleepy now. I sit between Katniss and Rory and Cinna turns on the television.

 

The parade washes over me like water. The District 1 tributes are glorious in their silks and jewelry.

 

"I'm worried about that Ebony," Peeta says. "She seems like trouble."

 

"She's a career," Katniss says. "Of course she's trouble." She glances pointedly at me, and Peeta shuts up. I try to ignore it.

 

The District 2 kids are intimidating as knights in shining armor—District 2 is where most of Panem's peacekeeper's come from. Caesar Flickerman is in a box in the corner of the screen, commentating on everything, from the costumes to the attitude of the tributes to the horses to the crowd's response. He is very complementary of the District 1 and 2 tributes. He likes the District 3 costumes, but he isn't so sure about their attitude. The girl seems too nervous, and the boy is slouched and scowling.

 

"And what are they supposed to be?" he says as the District 4 kids come into focus. "Jellyfish?"

 

We all laugh, but it's unfortunate really.

 

"Anyway, I like their gumption," he says. "Look at the boy. He can't see what he's doing but he's not afraid of that. Wow! Did he just catch that flower?"

 

"He really does try to make everyone look their best," Peeta says. Katniss snorts. "He does," Peeta insists.

 

Caesar is just commenting on the upcoming apple trees from District 7 and flaming cows from District 10 when he sees the glow in the distance. "What is that?" he says, and suddenly all of the cameras are swiveling to take us in. And look at us!

 

There are gasps and hushed "ohs" from everyone in the living room.

 

We do not only shine. We gleam. Cinna was right. The gold in our costumes reflects the fire, making us look like we are engulfed in flames. The crowd on the screen is going wild, and we are hand in hand on our chariot, beaming, waving, catching flowers and throwing kisses. We are strong and tall—or we appear so standing up. We are confident. We are on fire.

 

"Look at that!" Caesar is shouting. He actually stands up, pointing in our direction, and for a moment the camera is focused on his stomach before someone swivels it up to his face again. "Look at them! That is spectacular! That is—I just don't know how to describe it! What are they? Some kind of bird?"

 

"Phoenixes!" someone shouts. "They're phoenixes!"

 

"That may have been me," Cinna says, looking properly ashamed of himself.

 

But the crowd takes it up. "Phoenixes! They're phoenixes!"

 

"That's right! That's right! They're phoenixes! And for those of you who don't know, phoenixes are immmortal birds who, well, look at them! They burn! Just look at them! There was some speculation about whether these two from District 12 would be the underdogs of this year's Games, given what we know about how hard Katniss Everdeen has worked to protect Primrose and Rory's performance at the reaping yesterday, but this will certainly change things for those hesitating sponsors."

 

The cameras follow us as we loop around the city circle. It switches to President Snow for the welcoming address, then stays with us again as we do one more round of the circle. Before it cuts off, they show Cinna and Portia extinguishing our flames and us leaping off the chariot, wings fanning out behind us, grinning fit to burst.

 

Effie is so ecstatic she is practically crying. "That was fabulous! Cinna, you are incredible, as always! And you two just stole the show! You saw Caesar! Everyone is going to be talking about us! Just you wait!"

 

"All right," Haymitch says. "We will wait. In the meantime, party's over. You two, get off to bed. You need your rest. I want to see you at breakfast 8:00 sharp. We need to talk strategy before training starts. That goes for you too, Katniss."

 

"What about Peeta?"

 

"He doesn't need me to remind him," Haymitch says. "The rest of you, I'm not so sure about."

 

"I'll just sleep at the table so I'm sure not to miss it," Katniss grumbles. Peeta nudges her in the ribs, grinning.

 

"You all got it?" Haymitch says.

 

"Got it," we all say.

 

"Good. Now scram."

 

Rory and I scram.

 

We are still in the hall when I hear Katniss say, "You really think this will help Rory?" They really need to work on waiting for us to be out of earshot.

 

"If he does well in training, he'll be fine," Haymitch says.

 

Rory looks at me and goes bright red. "I shouldn't have cried," he says.

 

I shake my head. "It will be all right."

 

Haymitch appears at the end of the hall. "What part of scram do you not understand?"

 

We go into our bedrooms.

 

The redheaded avox girl who served us at dinner is in my room, turning back the sheets for me.

 

"You don't have to do that," I say. "I'll just kick them all over the place. I haven't been sleeping well."

 

She smoothes the sheets into place. Then she goes to the food ordering apparatus in the corner and pushes a button. A moment later a mug of spiced hot milk appears on a tray. She brings it to me.

 

"Thank you," I say. "What's your name?"

 

She actually backs away, shaking her head frantically. I set down the milk, pick up a pencil and paper, and offer them to her. "Please, I won't tell anyone or use it in front of anyone if you don't want me to. But I—I want to know your name. Don't you think it's important for someone to know your name?"

 

She hesitates, then takes the paper and pencil from me and writes. She hands it back to me.

 

"Lavinia," I say, reading the paper. "That's pretty."

 

She smiles at me.

 

"Thank you, Lavinia," I say. "I know it must be awful here. So, thank you. For everything."

 

She pats my hand and leaves.

 

I sit on my bed and drink my hot milk. Then I crawl under the covers and close my eyes. I think it is going to take me a long time to fall asleep, even though I am so tired. So much happened today. The prep, the parade, Ebony shoving me in the elevator, the conversation with Johanna Mason, dinner and dessert and the recap, and now talking with Lavinia. But it seems like only a moment after I crawl into bed, Effie is tapping on my bedroom door.

 

"Time to get up, Primrose. We have a big, big, big day ahead of us."

 

#

 

Breakfast is laid out on a sideboard. When I arrive, Katniss and Peeta are helping themselves, and Rory and Haymitch are at the table, Rory wolfing down a heaping plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs, possibly his second, and Haymitch with his usual liquor. I am still feeling full from last night, so I take some rolls and fruit and hot chocolate and sit down.

 

Haymitch lets us all eat for a few minutes, then says, "So, training. You have three days of it. The Gamemakers will be there the whole time watching you, but so will the other tributes. So what do you show the other tributes, and what do you show the Gamemakers?" He turns to Rory. "I want you practicing with a bow as often as you can. The other tributes will be expecting you to be able to shoot, since Katniss is your cousin, so it wouldn't be helpful for you to hide it. And you need as much practice as you can get, especially with the Capitol weapons. Katniss can tell you, they won't be like you're used to."

 

Katniss nods.

 

"So what will I show the Gamemakers?" Rory asks. "They'll have seen me shooting."

 

"Show them how strong you are," Haymitch says. "And until you show them that, you stay away from the weights. Don't let the other tributes see that."

 

Rory nods.

 

"Prim, I want you to focus on the plants, edible and dangerous. Build fires. Tie knots. You can shoot a little too, but don't go anywhere near the climbing equipment. Stay on the ground. In fact, make it known that you are afraid of heights."

 

"And then climb things in my private session?"

 

"Don't just climb stuff. Don't touch the ground in your private session. Take a dart gun up there with you and shoot things if you want to, but don't touch the ground."

 

"Okay. That seems fine," I say.

 

Haymitch turns to Peeta and Katniss. "Am I forgetting anything?"

 

"I think that's all of it," Peeta says, and Katniss nods.

 

"Just one more thing then," Haymitch says. "Make some friends."

 

"What?" Rory and I both say.

 

"Yeah," Katniss says, "what?"

 

Peeta just looks thoughtful.

 

"Look, however great you two did last night, once you're in the arena, it doesn't really matter how pretty you look. You’re the smallest tributes. All of the mentors know each other, and you can bet they'll be making the best alliances for their kids. Katniss and Peeta are outside their circle. I can do my best for you, but you're not really my kids, are you?"

 

"But we're allies," Rory says.

 

"Not good enough," Haymitch says.

 

"Haymitch," I say slowly, "we're going to have to kill these people. I don't want to make friends with them. I don't want to get to know them at all."

 

"Too bad, Prim," Haymitch says. He stands up. "On your own, even with Rory, you won't stand a chance. You want to survive this thing, make allies. Am I clear?"

 

"Okay," Rory says.

 

Haymitch glares at me, and I nod miserably.

 

Katniss looks dubious, but Peeta still looks thoughtful. "Start with the tributes from 11," he says at last.

 

#

 

I find my outfit for training on my bed when I return to my room: navy blue pants and a soft yellow shirt with red stripes on the sleeves. There are also red elastics for my hair. I dress and fix my hair, then leave my room. When I meet Rory and Effie by the elevators, I see that Rory is wearing the same thing, except his shirt is red with yellow stripes on the sleeves.

 

We ride the elevator down past the suites for the tributes and their teams, past the lobby, and into the basement of the training center—though basement really isn't the word for it. When we step off the elevator, we enter a gleaming gymnasium. The equipment is state-of-the-art. The weapons are lethal, even for practice. There's a track running around the training center. I spot the edible plants station right away. Rory's eyes go to the target range. I glance up at the climbing equipment, and I can all but feel my muscles clenching, my hands itching to grab hold of a bar and swing myself up into the air. But I remember Haymitch saying I should make it known I'm afraid of heights, and I cringe over-dramatically and look away. I hear someone snicker. Good.

 

Most of the other tributes have already arrived and are standing in a circle around the lead trainer. An attendant pins a number 12 on the back of my and Rory's shirts, and we join the ring. I make sure I am standing beside the girl from District 11. I smile at her, and she smiles back. A few minutes later, Bree arrives guiding Kieran, and then the girl from District 7, Ennis, flounces in, and everyone is here.

 

The lead trainer, a tall woman named Atala, introduces herself and goes over the rules for training. Experts will remain at their stations, and we will be free to move from station to station to have lessons in whatever skills we want, per our mentors' instructions. Some stations teach survival skills. Others teach weapons and combat. If we want to practice with a partner, assistants are on hand, but we are not allowed to fight each other. Katniss and Peeta have covered all of this with us already, so while she's talking, I look around at the other tributes.

 

Haymitch was right. Rory and I are easily the smallest. Not only that, but these kids have been fed well their whole lives. Rory and I are healthy and strong, but we have nothing on these kids, and I can tell by the contempt in the eyes of the kids from 1 and 2 when they flick towards us that they know it. Some of them have probably been trained their whole lives in case this ever happened. Suddenly the idea that training for three months could put us on an equal footing, could give us a shot, seems laughable. And whatever happened last night at the parade, it wasn't because we are special at all. It was because Cinna is special.

 

It takes me a moment to realize that Atala has stopped speaking and the tributes are moving and Rory is tugging at my sleeve. I turn to him. He looks just as terrified as I feel.

 

"Prim, I can't make friends with these people," he says. "They're huge! They'll squish me!"

 

"They won't squish you," I say. Yet. "Haymitch is right. We're going to need allies." I survey the gymnasium. The boy from 1 is throwing knives at a target. So far, they are all clustered tightly together at the center of the board. Ebony is practicing wrestling with an instructor. The girl from 2, Diana, is stringing a bow. I don't want to be allies with any of them.

 

I notice the boy from 3 playing with wire at a station with tools, and I remember that his uncle won his Games by electricuting half a dozen tributes at once. I shudder, but I stop myself from rejecting him out of hand as a potential ally.

 

The kids from 5 and 6 are the only ones who look really incompetent. They're the ones whose parents are addicted to morphling. The boy from 5 appears to be having his first ever lesson with a sword, and the girl from 6 is staring hopelessly at the edible plants test. She picks up a berry and actually goes to eat it. The instructor grabs her arm. Not them.

 

The girl from 7 might be promising, but I remember watching her claw Johanna Mason's face at the reaping, and I know I won't be able to stomach working with her.

 

The kids from 9 and 10 have all taken to the climbing equipment. So has the boy from 11. I wince obviously again. We can't get up there to talk to them.

 

So that leaves Ivy from 11, Jason and Calico from 8, and Bree and Kieran from 4.

 

I point them out to Rory. "You pick. Who first?"

 

"It doesn't make sense for us to do everything together," Rory says, shuddering even as he says it. "We have different skills and things. We should split up. I just..."

 

"Tell you what," I say. "You go over there and talk to Bree. Ask her to show you how to fish or something, and you'll show her how to shoot. And see how it goes."

 

"Okay," Rory says. "I can do this. I can do this."

 

"You can do this," I say.

 

"I can do this," he says again, and he heads for Bree, whose walking around the room looking at the different stations.

 

I head for Ivy. She's standing at the starting line on the track, talking with an instructor about the best way to run long distance. I approach them, and when Ivy doesn't immediately glare at me, I join them.

 

"A lot of people think that the best stride you can have is long, but you actually want a shorter stride. You want to keep your legs closer together, and your weight tilted slightly forward as you're running. Like this." She demonstrates for a few steps. "Now, there are two kinds of running. Sprinting is about speed and short distances. Long distance is about endurance and, obviously, longer distances. When you're running long distance, you're going to need to go slower, because you're going to have to keep up that pace for a long time. Why don't you try a lap, and I'll time you and give you some pointers."

 

Ivy nods and turns to me. "Want to race?"

 

"Sure."

 

We get into position at the starting line for two lanes side by side.

 

"We'll do a sprint first," the instructor says. "I want to see your technique. And then we'll try something longer. Okay. On your mark." We both lean forward into a crouch. "Get set." I take a deep breath. "Go!"

 

Ivy and I lunge forward and sprint. The track is soft beneath my feet, almost springy. I'm used to the hard, paved streets of District 12, and I'm surprised that the softer surface is easier to run on. I speed around the training room. Ivy is taller, with longer legs, and she stays slightly ahead of me. Her brown legs flash in the lights of the gymnasium. We turn the last corner and the finish line comes into sight. I put on an extra burst of speed, my focus narrowing to that strip of white paint on the floor. Ivy speeds up too, and we run flat-out, neck and neck. She crosses the finish-line a split second before I do.

 

"Very good," the trainer says. She compliments our technique and gives us a few pointers. Ivy became a little flat-footed in that last stretch, and I was pumping my arms, which isn't a bad thing, but there's no telling what I'll be carrying or what I'll need to do while I'm running, so I shouldn't rely on it.

 

Next, we try a longer run, eight times around the track. Ivy and I are evenly matched again until the fourth lap, when she starts to fall behind. I keep my pace steady, and soon I am half a lap ahead of her.

 

"You're good," she says when she catches up to me at the finish line. "Do you know anything about hunting?" She glances over at the target range. I follow her gaze and see Rory showing Bree how to string a bow.

 

"A bit," I say. "I'm not as good as Katniss. But I'm all right."

 

"I'll teach you about edible plants if you show me how to shoot," she says.

 

I already know all about edible plants, of course, but I agree, and we leave the running instructor and join Rory and Bree at the shooting range.

 

At lunchtime, we leave the gym and go into an adjoining room. Food is laid out on carts all around the room. Rory, Bree, Ivy and I pick up plates and walk around the room, selecting the food we want. I'm about to follow them over to a table when I see Kieran standing hopelessly in the doorway.

 

"I'll be right there," I say. I hand my plate to Rory. "Save me a seat?"

 

Without waiting for a response, I cross to Kieran. "Want some help?" I ask.

 

"Who are you?" he asks.

 

"I'm Prim. From 12."

 

"Oh. Well, thanks, Prim, but I'm fine, really."

 

"Doesn't seem like it to me," I say. "Come on. I'll help you find some food. And then you can come sit with us. My arm's right here."

 

He's taller than me, and his hand lands on my shoulder before he finds my elbow. "Sorry," he says.

 

"It's all right. We're going to go to the left. I have a plate for you. Here we have chicken, beef, duck, and some sort of fish, I think. What do you want?"

 

"Describe the some sort of fish for me?"

 

"Um... it's sort of white. I think it's grilled. There's olives and tomatoes and some sort of cereal thing underneath. Sorry, I don't know the names for everything."

 

"That sounds good. I'll try it."

 

We move around the room like this, me loading up his plate. Then I lead him over to our table.

 

I set his plate down on the table. "There's a seat right here."

 

"You know, you really don't want me sitting with you."

 

"Why not?"

 

"Because I'm the blind guy. I'm an easy mark, and everybody knows it, and you don't want to be dragged down by me."

 

"You're not an easy mark if you have allies," I say, though I'm not entirely sure about this. Rory gives me a funny look, but I ignore him. I want Kieran on our team, I realize. I don't know why, and he's right—it's probably a bad idea—but if we have to have allies, I want him.

 

"Come on, Kieran," Bree says, "sit down."

 

"Bree? You're here?"

 

"Rory from 12 and Ivy from 11, too," Bree says. "You two, say hello so he can learn your voices."

 

"Hello," they both say at once.

 

"No, wait. Do that again," Kieran says.

 

Ivy and Rory both open their mouthes to speak again, then close their mouths, then open them again.

 

"Your silence tells me so much," Kieran says, grinning. "They're doing the awkward shuffle version of talking, right?"

 

"Yes," Bree says.

 

"All right," Kieran says. "Prim, where's that chair again?"

 

"Right here," I say. Then I realize he can't see where I'm pointing, so I take his hand and place it on the back of the chair. He sits and finds his plate in front of him.

 

Bree stands. "I should go sit somewhere else," she says.

 

"Why?" Rory says.

 

"Finnick said Kieran and I shouldn't be allies," Bree says. "He says it won't do either of us any good."

 

There is a very awkward pause.

 

"Of course, we're not going to listen to him," Kieran says. "But we're going to wait to team up officially until we're in the arena. At least then he can't give us an earfull about it."

 

"Exactly," Bree says. "I don't care what Finnick says. Kieran's my best friend."

 

"So sit down," Rory says.

 

Bree shakes her head. "We don't want it getting back to Finnick. Also, we don't want the careers to know how big our alliance is getting, do we?"

 

"No," we all say. We really don't want that.

 

"So, I'll go sit somewhere else. What do you all think of Calico and Jason? Should we try to get them to join us?"

 

"All right," I say.

 

"Can't hurt," Rory says.

 

"My dad says Cecelia's really great, and everyone loves her," Ivy says. "So go for it."

 

"Okay," Bree says. She glances around, then turns back to us and shouts, loud enough for the rest of the tributes to hear. "You're all idiots. There's no way I'm teaming up with you." And she stalks away amid the careers' laughter.

 

The next three days pass in much the same way. We practice our skills, teaching each other what we know. Kieran, Ivy, and I work together, and Rory goes off to join Bree, Calico, and Jason. We train hard, but we stick to Haymitch's instructions and make friends.

 

I get a twisted feeling in my gut whenever I think about it, but that's what we do. Kieran, Bree, Calico, Jason, Ivy—they're all my friends. We take care to make sure the careers never see us all together at once.

 

On the second day, on Haymitch's instructions, I approach Elcee—the boy from 3. Haymitch says his uncle Beetee is a genius, and Elcee would be good to have on our team. He's working with wires and gears and tools I don't know all the names for when I approach. I recognize the trap the instructor taught me at the knot tying station yesterday—the one that would hoist a tribute up by their ankle and leave them dangling six feet off the ground. Only, Elcee's trap is made of wire, not rope.

 

"How does it work?" I ask him. He just grunts in reply. Bad sign. I reach out to test the tension of the wire, but the minute my fingers touch the wire, a spark leaps from the wire to my hand. I jerk back, my hand tingling. I rub my fingers, and Elcee laughs.

 

"Never mind," I say, backing away slowly. That's all the answer I need.

 

At dinner back on our floor, Haymitch, Effie, Katniss, Peeta, Cinna, and Portia grill us about the day—what training activities we did, what we learned, who we spoke to, what the other tributes seem like. The time slips by at an alarming rate, and before I know it, it's lunch on the third day of training. In a few minutes, they'll start calling us out, one at a time, for our private sessions.

 

"We may not get another chance to all talk before the Games," Kieran says. I'm sitting with him and Ivy. "So what's our plan?"

 

I glance across the room to where Rory is sitting with Calico, Jason, and Bree.

 

"Rory and I were talking about this at breakfast," I say. "We think we need a time when we can all talk without worrying about the careers seeing."

 

"And how are we going to do that?" Kieran asks.

 

"The night before the Games start," I say, leaning forward and speaking low, "after the interviews, let's all meet up on the roof. Peeta says we're allowed up there."

 

"What if our mentors stop us?" Kieran says.

 

"We’ll be up there," I say. "Rory's telling the others now too. Come if you can and we'll plan then. If you can't get up there, then run in the direction the tail of the cornucopia is pointing and find high ground, and we'll find each other."

 

"Um," Kieran says, twirling his fork between his fingers, "how am I going to know which way the tail is pointing?"

 

"Kieran, we'll use the plan we talked about," Bree says, sitting down in the empty seat beside him. I glance at her nervously. "The girl from 3 just went into her session, so all the careers are gone."

 

That wasn't what I meant to say, but I let it go as Rory, Calico, and Jason join us too. I don't want to know what plan Bree and Kieran have already discussed. We are allies—we are friends—but nothing will change the fact that we are in an arena to fight to the death.

 

"But we'll meet you on the roof," Kieran says. "I'm good at sneaking out."

 

"We'll be there too," Jason says, and Ivy nods.

 

"Do you know what you're going to do for your private session?" Bree asks Kieran.

 

"Well, I figure trying to face the Gamemakers without bumping into anything is a good start. Then maybe I'll crack some jokes to pass the time."

 

At that moment, an assistant approaches Kieran and guides him away for his session. Bree starts biting her nails.

 

One by one, our allies leave for their own private sessions until it's just me and Rory. Rory is pacing around and around our table, but I'm sitting, my legs and arms crossed tightly, every muscle in my body taut and trembling.

 

"You remember what to do?" Rory asks me.

 

I nod.

 

"Me too," he says. "I just... Remember what they said about them not paying attention to us because we're last?"

 

I nod again, then find my voice. "But it's like what Haymitch said. Don't lose your temper. Do your best. This is what we've been training for. This is what we're good at."

 

"Right."

 

He goes back to pacing.

 

The assistant reappears and calls, "Rory Hawthorn."

 

He does one more lap of the table, and I stand impulsively and hug him. "Good luck."

 

"See you when it's over."

 

And then I am alone in the dining room.

 

I stand and begin to retrace Rory's steps around and around our table.

 

At last, the assistant reappears in the doorway. "Primrose Everdeen," she calls, even though I'm the only one in the room. I square my shoulders and follow her back into the gymnasium.

 

I was prepared to see the Gamemakers eting, talking, laughing, pretty much doing anything but looking at me. But they are lined up behind their table, not touching the feast laid out before them, not talking to each other. They stare at me with rapt, undivided attention. I stop in front of them and fight the urge to gulp. "Primrose Everdeen," I say. "District 12."

 

The head Gamemaker, Plutarch Heavensbee, nods at me.

 

I take a deep breath. Here goes.

 

I run for the knot tying section. Grab up a length of rope and toss it over my shoulder as I dash for the climbing equipment. I grab hold of a bar and swing myself up. I climb to the top of the equipment, then swing myself from bar to bar, crossing the whole gymnasium in less than a minute. When I reach the other side, I swing myself up onto a balance beam and run along it.

 

Finally, I fix the rope around the beam with a series of quick, firm knots, then tie the other end around my own waist. I take a deep breath and leap off the beam. I swing through the air, my momentum carrying me forward as well as down. I fix my eyes on the table of paints at the camouflage station ahead of me. I stretch out one hand and seize the jar of red berry juice, just as my rope pulls tight and I swing back.

 

I grin at the Gamemakers as I catch hold of one of the bars crossing the ceiling and pull myself back up. I scramble along it until I reach the wall. Then, hooking one leg over the bar, I unscrew the lid of the berry juice, dip my fingers into it, and draw a circle. In my mind's eye, I can see the mockingjay on Katniss's pin. I imagine the looks on their faces when I draw that on their wall.

 

Then I stop. This is a bad idea for so many reasons.

 

But I already have the circle.

 

I dip my fingers in the juice and draw a rough outline of the Capitol seal. They can read whatever they want into that.

 

I cover the juice, check the snugness of the rope around my waist, then leap from my perch again. As I fly towards the ground, I toss the berry juice ahead of me, and it lands neatly back in its place at the camouflage station.

 

I allow myself to swing back, and as I pass the knife station, I seize one and cut the rope holding me up. As I drop, I hurl the knife at the target. It sticks right in the center.

 

I land lightly on my feet. Then I wave to the Gamemakers with my juice smeared fingers and leave the gym, still grinning.


	8. Katniss and Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The training scores are announced and the tributes and mentors prepare for the interviews.

Chapter Eight

Katniss

 

Dinner is boisterous. Prim is still riding high after her individual session with the Gamemakers. Rory is less sure of himself, but he's still smiling. I think he's glad it's over. Or he's just really enjoying the food—chicken pot pie and ravioli stuffed with pear and pumpkin in a basil and olive oil sauce. I am certainly enjoying the food.

 

"I was doing great," he tells Effie. "I had this big stack of weights, and I was running across the gym. And then I tripped. And everything went flying. But I picked it all up and went even faster." His grin fades a bit. "They probably hated me, right? I mean, if that happens in the arena, I'm dead."

 

Everyone sobers at this.

 

"I'm sure they didn't hate you," Effie says.

 

"And you have a lot more going for you then just this score," Peeta says. "You have plenty of skills you didn't show them, and you have allies."

 

"You bet we do." Rory's grin is back in place. "Our team might even be bigger than the careers." He pauses to count on his fingers.

 

"Just be careful," I say. I feel like I need to remind them that this is not a game. In two days, they will be entering that arena. There's no telling what they'll be facing or how long their alliances will last when put to the test.

 

After dinner, we go into the living room to watch the scores. Prim is actually bouncing in her seat. I put my hand on her knee, and she stills. "Sorry," she mutters. "I know it's serious."

 

Caesar Flickerman comes on and explains how the scoring works. Every tribute has been carefully evaluated over the three days of training and in their private sessions. They will be scored on a scale from one to twelve—twelve being impossibly good, one unbelievably bad.

 

When Caesar finishes talking, the screen shows simple headshots of each tribute above their score.

 

The tributes from Districts 1 and 2 all score eight or nine, except for the girl from 1, Ebony, who scores a ten. The boy from 3, whom Prim said she didn't like, scores a seven.

 

Kieran scores a two. Prim lets out a sad little moan beside me, and my heart squeezes for her. But I am not surprised.

 

"He was never going to do well," Haymitch says sadly.

 

"Don't count him out," Rory says, gripping Prim's hand.

 

I don't say what I am thinking. I wish Prim hadn't become friends with this boy. It will only make things harder for her, because there is no way he will survive. I can only hope it is quick for him.

 

"And look," Rory says. "Bree has a six. That's pretty good, right?"

 

"Right," Prim says.

 

The tributes from 5 and 6 and the boy from 7 all score between three and five, but Ennis, the girl from 7, scores a nine.

 

Beside me, Peeta is copying the scores studiously into his notebook. I feel myself tensing up as we get closer and closer to District 12.

 

"Jason and Calico next," Prim says, leaning forward. They both score seven. Prim and Rory both clap. I glance at Peeta. He looks up from his notes to meet my gaze, and I see my own worry reflected in his face. We both look at Haymitch, but he just shakes his head at us.

 

"Just Ivy left," Prim says. "And us."

 

Rory nods. "And us."

 

Ivy also scores a seven.

 

Prim and Rory are now clutching each other's hands so tightly their knuckles are white, giving the lie to their cheerful attitudes. The tension in the room increases, and I grab Peeta's hand and crush his fingers too.

 

Rory's picture appears on the screen—he looks sheepish in his headshot—and there's a number nine underneath his face.

 

Effie shrieks and hugs him. Prim cheers and hugs him too.

 

"Excellent," Cinna says.

 

"Guess they liked you after all," Haymitch says.

 

I breathe a sigh of relief. With a training score like that, we're bound to find him some sponsors. "Gale's going to be so proud of you," I tell Rory, gripping his shoulder. He flushes, but grins.

 

We quiet and turn back to the screen as Prim's beaming face appears above her score.

 

The breath whooshes out of me as if someone just punched me in the stomach. My whole body goes numb.

 

There is absolute silence in the room. I stare at that number.

 

Prim draws in a breath that shakes audibly.

 

"One," Haymitch says. He turns to Prim. "One?"

 

"I don't—I didn't—I thought I did well—I mean, I did do well—"

 

She's going to cry. I can hear it in her voice. I resist the urge to hug her. That will just make Haymitch yell even more. And Haymitch is going to yell.

 

Prim bites her lip and clenches her hands into fists.

 

"What aren't you telling us?" Haymitch demands.

 

"I told you—" Prim whispers.

 

"Tell us everything. What did you do in there? Exactly what did you do? And don't cry."

 

She does anyway.

 

"Don't cry!" Haymitch shouts.

 

"Haymitch," I say.

 

"Shut up, Katniss. She just blew everything."

 

"Maybe it's not that bad," Peeta says.

 

"It's that bad," Cinna says, and coming from him, the words shock me all over again.

 

"I don't think anyone's ever scored a one before," Haymitch says. "Congratulations, sweetheart, you just made Hunger Games history. Hell, you did worse than the blind kid."

 

"But the careers will just overlook her," Peeta says, "won't they?"

 

"Best case scenario, she's overlooked," Haymitch says, "but that's not just by the careers. She's overlooked by the sponsors too. And that's the best scenario."

 

"But this just doesn't fit with Prim's record so far," Effie says. "The sponsors might be forgiving."

 

Haymitch snorts. "Let's look at Prim's record. Katniss volunteers to save her when her name is called last year. Katniss volunteers, everyone assumes, because there's no way Prim will survive. Then the Quell is announced. Prim is going into the arena and there's nothing Katniss can do about it. She's feisty at the reaping, but we still see Katniss trying to protect her. She's pretty and charming at the opening ceremony, but that's just pageantry, and everybody knows it. Now she scores a one. No skills. No chance of surviving. I'd say this fits in pretty well."

 

Silence follows except for Prim's sniffles.

 

Haymitch turns his glare on her. "So tell us again. Exactly what happened this afternoon?"

 

Prim wipes her eyes and squares her shoulders. "I used rope, and I went up into the climbing equipment, and I didn't touch the ground, like you told me. I went across the whole gym and back without touching the ground." She pauses to wipe her nose on her sleeve. Cinna passes her a tissue.

 

"What did you use the rope for?" Haymitch prompts.

 

"To swing down and grab paint," Prim says thickly, "from the camouflage station."

 

"And what did you use the paint for?"

 

"I was going to paint Katniss's mockingjay on the wall," Prim says. Haymitch makes a choked noise in his throat. "But I didn't!" Prim says. "I knew that would be bad. So I painted the seal of Panem instead."

 

We all groan.

 

"I thought it was better than the mockingjay," Prim says. "Loyalty to the Capitol and Panem and—"

 

"And you bit a peacekeeper, Prim," Haymitch says. "You didn't think they would pick up the sarcasm?"

 

"I didn't mean it to be sarcastic," Prim says.

 

"Forget it," Haymitch says. "The damage is done."

 

"So how do we fix it?" Peeta asks.

 

Haymitch sits back in his chair and sighs. "We start with the interview. That will be the first time Prim can talk about what happened. We'll need to spin it so that it's like she's hiding something. Like this score is deliberate. Like she's more than that number."

 

"We can do that?" I ask, grasping at this slim hope.

 

"We can try," Haymitch says slowly, and I recognize the cautious note in his voice and hate it. He's making his choice. In the arena, he will choose to save Rory. I will lose Prim.

 

"Don't accuse the Gamemakers of anything," Effie tells Prim. It takes me a moment to pull myself back to the conversation.

 

Prim nods.

 

"We'll talk more about it tomorrow," Haymitch says. "At least we know one thing Caesar will definitely ask you." He does a cruel but accurate immitation of Caesar Flickerman. "So what happened with that training score, Primrose? We all thought you had more spunk."

 

Prim gets up and walks calmly out of the room. Before her bedroom door closes, we hear her sob.

 

I stand up.

 

"No, sit," Haymitch says.

 

I sit slowly, glaring at him.

 

"It had to be said, Katniss," Haymitch says. "But don't think I liked it."

 

Rory gets up. "I'll go talk to her." He leaves.

 

"In terms of tomorrow," Haymitch says, "I think we need a change of plans. I want to go with Katniss to talk to the sponsors. Sorry, Katniss, but I don't think you can handle it by yourself."

 

I don't argue. I'm thinking about the choices I will have to make in the coming days. I am thinking about how, right now, it might be much easier to keep Rory alive through this than my sister. But I will not lose Prim without a fight. I will do everything I can to keep Prim and Rory alive, both of them, for as long as I can. I will not make this choice.

 

"And, Peeta," Haymitch says, "you and Effie will be in charge of coaching the kids for their interviews. We'll see how that goes and plan from there. Everybody got it?"

 

We all nod miserably.

 

"Haymitch, you said the best case scenario is everyone overlooks Prim," Peeta says. "So what's the worst case scenario?"

 

Haymitch sighs. "They think she's an easy target."

 

#

 

I can't sleep. I can't keep lying to myself.

 

I walk down the hall to Peeta's room. I push the door open. My heart pounds, but I am empty.

 

The room is dark, but Peeta sits on the edge of his bed. The curtains aren't drawn, and I can see his silhouette against the flat light of the Capitol twelve stories below us.

 

"Hey," he says. His voice is dull.

 

"Hey." I close the door and sit beside him.

 

He doesn't look up at me but continues to stare fixedly at his knees, his forehead propped on his hand. What is he thinking? Is he trying to make choices? Trying to find a way out?

 

"Why didn't we run away?" he asks me after a time.

 

I hate to hear him sound so defeated. I take his hand. "They would have killed us," I say, dredging up the very reasons I gave hi—and myself—months ago, on the night the Quell was announced. "And then they'd kill us. And they'd put Prim and Rory in the arena anyway."

 

He nods into his hand. "And then they wouldn't have anyone."

 

We sit in silence, holding hands. "How are we going to get through this?"

 

When Peeta answers, his voice is rough. "I don't know."

 

I nod. I was expecting comfort, but that would just be another lie.

 

#

Prim

 

"Okay," Peeta says. "I'm going to pretend to be Caesar."

 

"Like Haymitch did?" I ask. My voice wobbles, and I suck in a breath to stop it. We are in the living room, sitting on facing couches.

 

Peeta frowns. "I'm going to ask you some questions Caesar is likely to ask you," he says. I notice he didn't really answer my question. "You answer them."

 

"All right." I plant my feet solidly on the floor and fold my hands in my lap. Effie spent all morning teaching me about poise. I'll probably only need poise for one night. It's not like poise will matter once the Games begin. "Let's do this."

 

"Remember, be honest, but not too honest. You want them to like you, to feel like they know you, but you also want some mystery. You got that?"

 

I nod. "Got it."

 

"All right then," he says. "Primrose, tell us: What do you think about the Quell?"

 

Honestly? I think it's cruel. I think it's horrible. But I can't say that. Mystery, then. "I think it's... interesting." The first word I come up with.

 

Peeta's eyebrow quirks. "Interesting? What do you mean?"

 

Oops. "Well, um.." I start fidgeting. "I think..." I twiddle my fingers together. I look down. Push my hair behind my ear. "I think—" But I don't know what I think. I grab the hair I just pushed out of my face and curl it around my fingers.

 

"Okay, stop." Peeta leans forward, grabs my hands, and pulls them away from my face. He holds onto them tightly. "Take a deep breath."

 

I do. I didn't realize until now that my breathing was sharp and ragged. Now I breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in again. Heat floods my face. "Sorry."

 

"Prim," Peeta says, "you can't let this shake your confidence. You have been incredible so far, and you will continue to be incredible. Do you understand me?"

 

I nod, but I feel cracked, almost broken.

 

"Prim," Peeta says, gripping my hands even tighter. He must know how I'm really feeling. "You have so much more going for you. You have Rory. You have other allies."

 

"They might not want to be allies anymore."

 

"They didn't become your allies because of your skills," Peeta says. "It's because of you, because of your strength. Your spark."

 

That's what Cinna said. I have a spark. And that's what Rory said: we have allies. And they didn't know my score when we teamed up. I didn't have a score. And I remember that Peeta has been here. Exactly a year ago, he was doing this with Haymitch. How did he feel? How did he pull it together?

 

"Do I have to be honest?" I say.

 

"Well, no," Peeta says, "but you've given interviews before, as Katniss's sister, so be careful. It won’t look good if you’re caught lying."

 

"Okay."

 

"Are you ready to try again?"

 

I take a deep breath and nod. We start with the easy questions.

 

What do I think of the Quell?

 

I think it is sure to be very exciting. We all have so much to offer.

 

What do I think of the Capitol so far?

 

I am overwhelmed by how big it is, by how kind everyone has been. I love the food. I never thought I would get to see it in person, but here I am.

 

Is it true that Katniss isn't going to be my mentor?

 

Yes, that's true. It was a difficult decision, but for my skills, Peeta was a better choice, just like Katniss was a better choice for Rory’s skills.

 

So I'm good at camouflage?

 

No, I'm terrible. I grin when I say that, and Peeta beams at me. I'm doing it right.

 

This leads him right into what my skills might be and what happened in training.

 

"Tell us what happened in your private session, Prim," he says.

 

"I don't think I can do that," I say, because I have to, but I wink obviously at him.

 

"Give us a hint," Peeta says. "There are sponsors here tonight, Prim, and they want to know why they should support you."

 

If they're wondering that, I'm honestly not sure I want them as sponsors. "It isn't all about training, Caesar," I say. "And it isn't all about some number some people gave me."

 

"No," Peeta says. "Don't insult the Gamemakers. Try again. What would you say to convince these sponsors to support you?"

 

"It's not all about training?"

 

"With confidence."

 

"It's not all about training. I am more than a number." I pause. "That doesn't seem mysterious enough."

 

Peeta nods. "Let me think."

 

I bite my lip. "I don't want to sound weak," I say.

 

"No. But I think you're too—" He stops himself.

 

"What?" I say.

 

“Mysterious might not be the right angle for you,” he says. "I think you might be too small to pull it off without sounding weak."

 

I should be insulted, but I'm not. He's right. Rory and I are the smallest tributes. "All right then." I square my shoulders. "Training isn't everything, and I am more than my score. I am so much more than a number." My voice rings through the room. "I am a tribute from District 12. I may not look like much now, but you'll see tomorrow. So don't count me out just yet."

 

"Yes!" Peeta actually punches the air. "Yes!"

 

#

Katniss

 

"Katniss." Finnick O'Daire stands in front of me. "Thought we should properly meet, since our tributes are planning this alliance thing."

 

"Hi," I say.

 

"Thumbs up for the enthusiasm," Haymitch mutters in my ear. He's been drinking a lot today, and it's only gotten worse as many of the people who promised to support Prim have backed out.

 

"Don't you need to refill your flask, Haymitch?" I say. I really shouldn't be encouraging him, but I can't stand being around him when he's like this.

 

"So, a one," Finnick says.

 

"Is this how you introduce yourself?"

 

"We're on the same team."

 

"I'm not so sure we are."

 

"Hmph. What did she do to deserve it?"

 

I try to keep a dignified silence, but I'm intrigued by him. He was the youngest victor ever. He was at a distinct disadvantage when he went into that arena. Maybe I can learn something from him, if I'm on his side. "She deserved a twelve."

 

"I'm sure she did," he says. "But as it stands, she did worse than my blind kid, and you have to admit, that's just sad."

 

"And what did Kieran do to deserve that?"

 

"He's blind." Finnick says simply. "Also, he's related to a victor."

 

I nod. "Well, Prim's related to me."

 

"That would do it."

 

"So are you saying Kieran didn't deserve his score?"

 

Finnick shrugs. "Oh no. He probably earned his two fair and square. But he's got more tricks up his sleeve than you might think."

 

"Glad to hear it," I say. But I'm not.

 

"Look," Finnick says. "This is going to be awful no matter what, and I know that your first priority is your sister and your cousin, but I just wanted to say, thank you."

 

"For what?"

 

"For having a sister who will give a blind kid a chance."

 

I don't know what to say to that.

 

"Come here," Finnick says. "I want you to meet someone." He leads me over to a shorter, dark man with glasses. Beetee, a victor from District 3. Elcee, the boy tribute from 3, is his nephew. "Hey," Finnick says. "We're building a team over here. Thought you might want to join us."

 

I shift on my feet. Now I wish I didn't send Haymitch off to drink. I need him for this. He knows these people, and I don't. He wanted Prim and Rory to get to know Elcee, but Prim said when she approached him, Elcee shocked her with the electrical contraption he was building. I'm not sure I want her to be anywhere near him.

 

"That would not be a logical approach," Beetee says. "There will be only one victor. I can help my nephew best if he is alone."

 

Part of me agrees with that. It was my approach at the beginning of my Games. It was Beetee's approach in his Games. With no allies, you have no ties. You don't have to worry that they will betray you in the dead of night. You don't have to worry about being unable to save them.

 

But I also know from experience that I did better with a partner. First Rue, then Peeta. Prim will do better with allies too. But she doesn't need this boy. We don't need Beetee.

 

"All right," Finnick says. He's still perfectly cheerful. "Just thought we'd offer." He slings an arm around my shoulders and steers me away from Beetee. "He'll come around," he says to me.

 

"What?" I say. "We don't need him."

 

"Actually, we do," Finnick says.

 

#

 

"So how did the interview prep go?" I ask at dinner.

 

Effie beams. "Splendidly," she says. "They are so much less irritable than you, Katniss."

 

"Thank you, Effie," I say. I turn to Peeta. “How did it really go?”

 

"It did go very well," Peeta says.

 

Rory puts his chin on his arms. "Right. I did great. Apparently I have stage fright."

 

Effie reaches over and rubs his back. “You’ll be brilliant,” she says. “Remember what we talked about with Peeta? Just make it a strength. Make it who you are to the audience.”

 

“Sure,” Rory mutters. “That will work fine.” I think it’s the first time he’s been sarcastic with Effie, but to my surprise, she doesn’t respond with her usual quip about good manners.

 

"This is all very important," Cinna says, "but everything changes when the Games actually begin. And we all know you'll do just fine then."

 

Haymitch makes a noise like he's repressing a snort. He's been drinking all through dinner. I think about taking the alcohol from him, but I don't want to cause a scene. Not now, when we're trying to create this tenuous hope.

 

Cinna shoots Haymitch a look, then turns back to Prim and Rory. "But you'll turn it around long before that, because you're going to be wonderful tomorrow. Yes, even you, Rory. And just wait until you see your outfits."

 

Prim and Rory go off to bed looking marginally more cheerful. I look at Peeta. "Stage fright?"

 

He nods.

 

"Is it bad?"

 

He nods again.

 

Haymitch grabs the wine bottle and drains it. Scowling, he leaves the table. Cinna says something about needing to finish up a few things before tomorrow, and he and Portia leave. Effie goes to make sure Rory and Prim are all right.

 

I move around the table to sit beside Peeta and lay my head on his shoulder. I'm exhausted, and the Games haven't even started. Peeta puts his arm around me.

 

After a while, I say, "I just thought we had it under control. And I thought if things were under control, we might have a chance of getting one of them home, at least. But now..." I choke on the words. "Everything is falling apart."

 


	9. Prim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tributes have their interview with Caesar Flickerman and the seventy-fith Hunger Games begin.

Chapter Nine

Prim

 

"How are you feeling?" Cinna asks.

 

I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I am a midnight phoenix. My dress is a deep, royal blue. The skirt is studded with tiny yellow diamonds in flame patterns, and the fitted bodice is streaked with miniscule threads of fiery orange and red and gold, so whenever I move, the cloth seems to change color. There are also a pair of wings pinned to the back of my dress: navy blue veined with gold sparkles and more yellow diamonds. The wings are heavier than the wings we wore during the tribute parade. Maybe Cinna reinforced them so they won't break if someone decides to shove me. My hair is teased up on top of my head and crowned with an intricate blue and gold headpiece, like the crest of a bird on fire. Finally my whole body has been covered in glittering gold powder so that my skin shines.

 

"Prim?"

 

"I'm fine," I say.

 

"Let's have a smile," he says, "and then maybe I'll believe you."

 

I forme my lips to curl up, but it feels like the muscles in my face have forgotten how to do it properly. "This is beautiful, Cinna," I say. My voice sounds flat, even to me. "Thank you."

 

"Is there anything you want to talk about?"

 

"No. I'm all right. Really. I know what I'm going to say. I just feel..." Hopeless. Terrified. Lost.

 

"It seemed like everything was going so well, and then it fell apart," Cinna said. "But it will come back together, Prim. I promise."

 

"Thanks, Cinna."

 

I think he can tell I don't believe him, but he doesn't say anything else about it. Instead, he threads a slender, jeweled belt around my waist and shows me how the jewel on my right hip is really a button. "When you all stand up for the anthem," Cinna says, "hold hands with Rory and push this. He'll have one too."

 

"So... I'm not going to have to twirl like Katnisss?" I've been worried about it. After everything else, I really don't need to lose my balance and fall off the stage.

 

Cinna shakes his head. "No. Caesar probably won't ask you, and even if he does, I don't think it will be enough. This, though... This is different."

 

"Meaning...?"

 

"You'll see."

 

I am far from comforted, but with a last check of my hair and makeup, Cinna is ushering me out of my bedroom.

 

"Cinna..." I dig in my heels against the forward press of his hand on my shoulder. I can't do this.

 

"Remember, they already love you," he says, giving my shoulder a squeeze.

 

"How can they love me?" My voice cracks. "I scored a one. A one!"

 

"But they're not stupid," Cinna says. "They know there's a disconnect between how well you've been doing and your training score. They know you had warning and time to train. They'll listen to you tonight."

 

I take a tentative step down the hall, then force myself to take another, then a third.

 

We reach the elevators, where the rest of the District 12 crowd is waiting for us. Rory looks fabulous in a crimson tunic and pants accented with gold and scarlet wings veined in gold and studded with yellow diamonds. We crowd into the elevator. As we shoot down towards the lobby, I frantically go over everything I planned with Peeta and Haymitch in my head.

 

The moment we step out of the elevator, attendants whip us into line with the other tributes. I glimpse Effie, Haymitch, Katniss, Peeta, Cinna, Portia, and the preps slipping out the door to join the audience. And then we are walking out onto the stage. Caesar Flickerman is already out there, warming up the crowd. He announces our names as we stride onto the stage.

 

"Ivy Carrowell! Aspen Woodley!" he bellows. "Primrose Everdeen!" I move into the lights of the stage as the crowd roars. "And Rory Hawthorn!"

 

For a moment, I am dazzled by all the light and noise. I blink several times as I keep walking forward, hoping against hope that I won't crash into someone or something. Somehow I find my seat and stand in front of it as the anthem plays. Then I sit with the rest of the tributes, twisting my icy hands in my lap, as Caesar calls Ebony forward.

 

I watch her sweep across the stage, trying to suppress a mounting feeling of dread in my gut. Ebony is tall and haughty and nothing but grace in her low-cut ballgown of cream and gold satin. She has years of training and a score of 10 to prove it. Even when she is just sitting, talking to Caesar, I can see the well-defined muscles of her arms and back. Next to her, I am a child. No competition at all.

 

"So, tell me, Ebony," Caesar is saying, "you volunteered. Why?"

 

"I'm glad you asked that, Caesar," Ebony says. Her voice is sugar-sweet, but a moment later, it hardens. "I volunteered for these Games, because I want to kill Primrose Everdeen."

 

I hear myself gasp, feel my mouth fall open, but it's as if someone else is responding to her words. There are gasps and cries from the crowd, but there is also a cheer for Ebony's spirit, for how exciting this will make the Quell, for my death. On the screens above the stage, I see the cameras swiveling to take in my shock and fear, and I quickly shut my mouth and focus my attention back on Ebony. Kill me? She wants to kill me? I don't think I've ever heard a tribute so directly threaten another tribute during the interviews before.

 

"Primrose Everdeen?" Caesar says. His voice is still mild, as if he is trying to temper Ebony's words. "That is interesting. Tell us more."

 

"Well, you see, Caesar, our tribute in last year's Games, Glimmer, was my best friend. We exchanged tokens, you know, so if either of us went to the Games, we would have our friendship to remember. That was the piece of home we would bring with us." She holds up her hand, showing off a ring with a green stone that matched her eyes. The crowd is silent now, hanging on her every word. Her soft voice hardens into a grief-stricken growl. "And she was supposed to come home, but Katniss Everdeen killed her. Katniss Everdeen dropped a nest of trackerjackers on her, and when we buried her, we couldn't even recognize her. So I am going to do to Katniss Everdeen what she did to me. I am going to take away the person she loves most—the person she loves even more than Peeta Mellark." She stands up and turns on her heel to point at me. My hands are clenched into tight fists in my lap. My cheeks are flaming. I'm fairly sure my mouth is hanging open again, but there's nothing I can do about it. Tomorrow morning, the Games will begin, and this girl who is twice—maybe even three times my size—is going to hunt me down. "I am going to kill her little sister." She swivels back to face the audience, pointing at Katniss, whom I now see in the mentors' box. Her eyes are wide, and her face is bone white. "And I'm not just going to kill her, Katniss. It's going to be long. It's going to be painful. And when they send her body home, you won't recognize the girl you're burying."

 

The buzzer goes off, and Ebony sweeps back to her seat.

 

Caesar seems just as taken aback as everyone else by the abrupt end to the interview. I hear murmurs from the crowd, but there is a great deal of cheering now. Caesar pulls himself back together. "Ebony Shineheart from District 1! And now, Chrome—" I tune Caesar out as the hulking Chrome slopes past Ebony and up to the chair.

 

Blood pounds in my ears. Ebony wants to kill me. Suddenly, everything we have done to prepare me for this seems laughable, so much so that I actually smile. Maybe I'm becoming hysterical. I clench my hands so tightly my knuckles ache, schooling my face into complacency, calming my breathing.

 

The crowd shouts with laughter, and I come to my senses. Caesar is interviewing Kieran. "I'm serious," Kieran is saying over the laughter. "Finnick told me that eye contact with the audience is key." More laughter. "I just want to make sure I'm looking at someone." He looks deliberately up at the sky, and the audience howls with laughter.

 

"So," Caesar says, "what is your favorite part of being in the Capitol, Kieran?"

 

"Well, I have to agree with Peeta Mellark when he said that the showers are interesting. So many different kinds of soap—I can tell everyone apart by smell. Do you think that will come in handy in the arena?” More laughter. I’m surprised to realize that Kieran is good at this. Really good at this. And why shouldn’t he be?

 

"So tell us," Caesar says, "do you have a strategy for the start of the Games tomorrow?"

 

"Oh, I'm going right in to the Cornucopia," Kieran says. "I want those night vision glasses. After that, I’ve gotta tell you, my aim is stellar."

 

The audience is in stitches, but there's no denying how unfair all this is to Kieran. On his own, without us, he wouldn't stand a chance. Even with us as allies, he can't possibly think he'll survive. And if I want to go home...?

 

I shake my head. Right now, I need to think about what I am going to say to Caesar about Ebony's threat, because it's bound to come up.

 

I am still trying to gather my scrambled thoughts when the buzzer goes off, Aspen returns to his seat beside me, and Caesar calls out, "And now, you've been waiting for her all night, the lovely Primrose Everdeen from District 12!"

 

I stand. My legs feel like they have the strength of uncooked dough, but I walk up to Caesar and shake his hand. His warm hand engulfs my small, icy hand. I find Peeta in the crowd, next to Katniss, and I focus on him as I sit down.

 

"So, Primrose!" Caesar says. He's practically bouncing with anticipation. "What a splash you have made in the Games so far! I have to say—it's been an incredible ride. Your spirit at the reaping. Your costume in the parade. Your costume now! I mean, look at her! Cinna really is outdoing himself!" The crowd cheers appreciatively.

 

Caesar's voice drops conspiratorially, but the audience has gone so quiet that every word echoes. "And then there's that training score, Primrose. I think I'm right that a lot of us are very curious about what happened there."

 

I tense, waiting for the question. The answer is already on my lips. Whether I survive depends on me getting sponsors, and whether I get sponsors depends on what I say right now.

 

But Caesar keeps talking. "And then, just moments ago, Ebony swore revenge on your sister. She swore to kill you, Primrose. Tell me, how do you feel about that?"

 

I swallow hard. "Well, I just want to—my training score—" I shake my head and clear my throat. "I'm sorry. What I mean to say is, when Katniss killed Glimmer last year, it wasn't out of malice. It was because they were playing by the rules of the Games. And if Ebony's upset about that, I'm sorry. It was cruel. But if she thinks killing me will solve anything—if she thinks she can kill me so easily—" Heat is rising in my cheeks. My voice is getting louder and louder. "I'm more than I seem—I'm more than my training score—and I'd like to see her try."

 

The crowd cheers. A louder cheer than they gave Ebony? I can't tell. Katniss buries her face in her hands.

 

The buzzer hasn't gone off, but I stand up. "Thank you, Caesar," I say. I turn to face Ebony. She's all the way on the left of the arc of tributes behind the interviewing chairs, facing the center of the stage rather than the audience, so I only have to turn to the side to see her, and the cameras can still see my face. I fix my best glare on her and clench my fists at my sides. She will not stop me from going home. She will not scare me.

 

The moment stretches. The noise from the crowd throbs in my ears, growing louder and louder, almost drowning out the buzzer that signals the end of my time. Caesar is shouting something, but I don't care. I swivel on my heel, turn my back to Ebony, and stride back across the stage.

 

Halfway to my seat, I pass Rory, on his way forward for his own interview. His face is deathly pale against his crimson costume. My heart flutters against my collarbone. I should have remembered his stage fright and said something comforting to him before we came out onto the stage, instead of just worrying about myself. And I should have thought of him before I stood up and said all that to Ebony. Now I'll be dragging him and all my other allies into a fight with Ebony. If they even still want to be my allies.

 

I shake off these thoughts as I sit down. Ebony has always been a threat. At least now, we all know where we stand. And I've done what Peeta and Haymitch wanted me to do. I've given the crowd one more reason to sponsor me. And more sponsors for me is good for all of us.

 

The buzzer dings. Rory's interview is over. I didn't take in a word of it.

 

Rory returns to his seat. I can't meet his eyes. We're a team, and I'm not thinking about him at all.

 

We all rise for the anthem. Rory seizes my hand. "Prim!" he hisses.

 

I catch Cinna's eye in the crowd and remember the button on my belt. I press it, and instantly I feel my wings tauten, then flex. And then—I am so shocked I nearly let go of Rory's hand—my feet leave the ground. We rise up. Our feet are level with the other tributes' heads, then with the top of the glass doors into the training center, then with the windows on the first floor.

 

"Prim!" Rory's voice wobbles.

 

I squeeze his hand. His fingers crush mine back.

 

I look to the screens, and I gasp. "Rory, look at us!"

 

We are not only flying. We are burning. Flames flicker over our wings, our clothes, our headdresses. The crowd is going wild. As the anthem finishes, we hover level with the Capitol seal painted on the building, our fire casting a flickering glow over the seal. Then we sink slowly, gently, back to earth.

 

#

 

Haymitch waits until we have reached the twelfth floor before he rounds on me. "What the hell," he says, his voice too calm, too controlled, "was that?"

 

Effie turns suddenly to Rory. "You did so well, Rory," she says. Her voice is too light and breathy. Flustered. "I had no idea you liked colors so much. Come here. I want to show you..." She trails off as she scoops an arm between Rory's wings and his shoulders and ushers him away.

 

"I'll come with—"

 

"You stay right here," Haymitch growls.

 

Effie's heels click their way down the hall—Rory's soft boots are silent. "Cowards," I mutter under my breath as a door closes with a click.

 

"You could do with a bit of healthy fear yourself, sweetheart," Haymitch says. His voice is still horribly calm.

 

"Haymitch—" Katniss starts.

 

"You shut up."

 

"But—" Peeta interjects.

 

"And you." Haymitch glares at me.

 

I resist the urge to shrivel, and I keep my voice as calm as his. "What was I supposed to say, Haymitch?"

 

"Anything!" Haymitch shouts. "You could have said anything else! Deflected the question! Made a joke of it! Acted shy! Humble! Even scared would have been better! Instead, what do you do? You challenge her in front of the whole damn country!"

 

"Humble?" Peeta asks.

 

Haymitch ignores him. "Do you not specifically remember the two possible outcomes of your training score? Best case scenario, they ignore you? Worst case scenario, they think you're an easy target? Well, welcome to the worst case scenario, sweetheart."

 

"He's right, Prim," Cinna says. It's his quiet voice, more than anything, that makes me want to cry. I fist my hands at my sides.

 

"Of course I'm right," Haymitch snaps.

 

"Haymitch, that's enough," Katniss says, "you've made your point."

 

"No, I don't think I have, Katniss," Haymitch says. "Prim, you're going into that arena tomorrow, and none of us are going to be there to help you. No more training. No more coaching. No more sparkly dresses and angel wings or whatever you're supposed to be."

 

"Phoenix," I say, stung.

 

"You better take this seriously, because we're talking about your life now."

 

"I am taking this seriously!" It's my turn to shout. "I have been taking this seriously since they pulled my name last year, so don't—"

 

"You provoked her. You made yourself seem like more of a threat to her."

 

"But I am more of a threat than she thinks."

 

"And you should have let her keep thinking you were weak," Haymitch says. He's stopped shouting. Now he just looks exhausted.

 

"Well, I'm sorry," I say. "It's not like we planned for this."

 

"Well, maybe this whole team needs to plan better for whenever you go off the rails."

 

"She probably got some of those sponsors back," Katniss says, before I can argue back.

 

Haymitch deflates. "Probably, but it's not for the reason I would have liked."

 

"But," Peeta says, "whatever works, right?"

 

"Right," Haymitch says. "Go get ready for dinner. I need a drink."

 

I turn away without looking at any of them and go back to my room. I take off my wings, then flop down on my bed and bury my face in a pillow. I don't cry. I don't scream. I just take this moment to hide.

 

When Effie taps on my door to call me to dinner, I get up. I change out of my rumpled gown and mindlessly find some pants and a shirt. Then I go out to the dining room. I eat with my head down, hardly noticing what I'm putting in my mouth. Then we go into the sitting room to watch the recap of the interview. It is just as bad as I remember, but this time, knowing what's coming, I can pay attention to what my allies say. Bree is sharp and ferocious, prepared to win at all costs. We all laugh at Kieran's self-depricating humor. Both Calico and Jason swear to keep each other safe as long as they can. I wish Rory and I had pulled that card. Ivy is quiet but confident. She talks about home and her younger brother. Then it's my turn. I come off even more ferocious than Bree, which is saying something, since she's at least a foot taller than me. Finally, it's Rory's turn. You can see his fear, but Caesar brings out his charming side.

 

"What do you think of the Capitol, Rory?" he asks.

 

"I love all the colors," Rory says. "At home, it's just gray and brown and some green in the meadow, but it's all flat. Here, there's every color in the world, and it's so bright and alive and always changing. If I win, I'm going to learn to paint like Peeta and bring all these colors home."

 

Caesar asks next about me. "You and Primrose seem very close. How do you feel about Ebony's challenge?"

 

Rory hesitates, but I already know he must not have made the same mistake I did, otherwise Haymitch would have yelled at him too. "Prim and I are close," he says. It seems like he's gaining some confidence as he speaks. He sits a little taller. "And we've become closer since the Quell was announced. And it's..." He pauses, choosing his words. "It's frightening, what Ebony said, what she wants to do to Prim, but Prim is family, she's my ally. I know that she'll stand behind me tomorrow. So I'm going to stand behind her."

 

I swallow sudden tears and hug him. "Thank you," I whisper in his ear. He has made me seem softer on the screen, somehow, more human.

 

He pats me on the shoulder. "You did fine."

 

I look back at the screen as the anthem begins. We watch as Rory and I burst into flame and rise up to float beside the Capitol seal. Then Haymitch switches off the television.

 

Cinna and Portia say goodnight and leave. They will see us bright and early tomorrow morning.

 

Effie hugs Rory, then me, very tightly. "You're going to do wonderfully," she says. Her voice breaks, and she blinks rapidly as she hugs Rory again. "Just... be brave, and... smile and..." She turns away.

 

"Careful there," Haymitch says. "You'll ruin your makeup."

 

Effie sniffs. "I'll get these three to the bargaining table if I have to do it at gunpoint. We're all behind you. We're going to take care of you. You'll be fine."

 

"Thank you, Effie," Rory says.

 

I nod. "For everything." It's hard to dislike her, even though we won't both be fine, and we know it.

 

Effie hurries away.

 

Haymitch takes a swig from his flask and looks at me. "I'm sorry I yelled at you before, Prim," he says. "It's just, this isn't the story I would have picked for you."

 

"I know."

 

"Any last advice?" Rory says.

 

Haymitch smiles. "Take care of each other, and stay alive. And..." He looks particularly hard at me. "In the arena, it’s easy to become your worst self. Don’t let that happen to you. Hold on to who you want to be." He takes another swig of his drink, then embraces us at the same time. "You can do this," he says. "Both of you." And he walks away.

 

Peeta hugs me tightly. "We're a team," he says. "Remember that. You're going to make it through this."

 

I hug him back as hard as I can. "Peeta," I whisper, "if I—" The words choke off.

 

"I'll build your city," he says. "I remember."

 

"And you'll take care of Katniss?"

 

His arms tighten around me. "I promise."

 

He lets me go and hugs Rory. Katniss comes over to me. I force a smile and hug her.

 

"I love you," she says.

 

"I love you too," I say. I squeeze my eyes tight shut. "I'll see you when it's over." Because I cannot bear to say goodbye.

 

"Try to get some sleep," Peeta says to us both, and he and Katniss leave.

 

Rory and I go together into my room and order all of the food on the menu. We carry it up to the roof to meet our allies. And we wait. And wait. And wait.

 

"So what did Effie want to show you?" I ask Rory, when the silence becomes unbearable.

 

"All her clothes," he says. "They're beautiful colors."

 

I try not to laugh. "Yes, because you love colors."

 

"I do, actually."

 

We wait some more. It's chilly up here, with the wind blowing through the trees in the rooftop garden. The wind chimes tinkle. I wish I brought a jacket. I think about going back in to get one, but they could be here any minute. Only, they don't come, and we keep waiting.

 

"They're not coming," I say at last. I pick up one of the coconut mango fritters I tried the other day and bite it in half.

 

"Maybe their mentors stopped them," Rory says. He picks up a puffy roll and weighs it in his hands.

 

"Or they don't want to be allies anymore," I say.

 

"No," Rory says. He takes a bite out of the roll. "You don't know that. They probably just couldn't come."

 

I grab a puffy roll of my own and squash it into a pulp in my fist. "No. They hate us. I mean, look at us! I'm all over the place. I scored a one, Rory, and I'm going to bring the careers down on us, and we'll all die. Haymitch was right. I ruined everything."

 

"First of all," Rory says, tearing another roll in half, spooning goose liver into the center, and smooshing the two halves together, "Haymitch isn't right. You didn't ruin everything. You did the best you could on the spot like that, and you probably made yourself look better to a lot of sponsors because of it. And when it comes down to it, it's not going to matter why they sponsor you."

 

"It matters to me," I say. "I don't want them to sponsor me because I'm ruthless or ferocious or—"

 

"Brave?" Rory says. "Strong? A whole lot stronger than anyone gives you credit for?"

 

I look down. I don't feel brave or strong.

 

"Second," Rory continues, as if I didn't interrupt, "you are not the only person on our team who people want to be allies with."

 

My cheeks flame. "I know that. I didn't mean—"

 

"You spent most of training with Ivy and Kieran. But Calico and Jason and Bree spent most of their time with me. We're all stronger together, and they know it. They also know that to be my ally means to be your ally."

 

"But they're not here," I say. My voice is small.

 

"And we don't know why they aren't here," Rory says. "And if we're going to hang on to who we really are in the arena, like Haymitch said, we might as well start now. And we don't assume the worst, either of us, ever."

 

"So what do we do?"

 

"Eat ourselves sick?"

 

We don't eat ourselves sick, but we do try some of everything. Then we go back to our rooms. There's a note tucked under my pillow from the redheaded avox girl: phoenixes don't fall. I curl up under the blanket and hold the note under the pillow as I go to sleep.

 

I am in last year's arena, Katniss's arena. I am alone, but the mockingjays are singing. I wander through the trees, knowing I should be looking for someone or something, but I can't remember. I have no supplies. I will need to worry about food soon, but I'm not hungry. Water, then. I turn in a complete circle, trying to orient myself.

 

Then, there is a sudden roar, and a wall of flames rushes towards me. I turn and run, but a tree falls in my path, and I trip over it and sprawl. The flames lunge at me, and now they aren't flames but fiery beasts, screaming with Rory's voice. They tear at my legs and arms and back and Ebony is laughing and my hair is on fire, everything is on fire, I am burning like a phoenix.

 

I jolt upright, gasping and drenched in sweat. Dream. It was a dream. I am all right. The Games haven't begun yet.

 

But the Games will begin in just a few hours. What will the arena be like? Like Katniss's? Woods and grass? That would be best, what we trained for. I can hide in the woods. I can build a fire, find food and water, make myself weapons. But if it isn't woods like Katniss's? What if it's a mountain, like in Haymitch's? There's probably shelter in the rocks. Probably I could use rocks as weapons.

 

I'm too jittery to go back to sleep, even though I know it's crucial I get sleep. I get up and pad back and forth across the room. I go over every arena I can remember seeing on the tapes. There was the year when it was a desert, but that wasn't popular. They probably wouldn't do something like that again. That probably means it won't be a frozen tundra either. But it could be a mountain, a plain, a jungle. It could be on the coast. It could be in a series of caves. A ruined city. A maze. Everything could be poisoned like in Haymitch's Games. There could be lava. It could all be lava.

 

"It could be a giant cake," I whisper, and I laugh a little. "It could be a giant cake." And if it is, I know how to handle it. Whatever it is, I'll figure it out. I'll run in the direction the tail of the Cornucopia points, find high ground, look for water, find my team. I will survive. I will not fall. "It could be a giant cake," I say, one more time, and for a moment, I am calm.

 

I order a glass of water and drink it, then get back into bed.

 

Too soon, Cinna is knocking on my door to wake me.

 

He helps me into a simple shift. My clothes for the arena will be waiting for me. Cinna takes me to the roof, where a hovercraft is waiting.

 

I place my hands and feet on the ladder and a current freezes me in place. I am lifted into the hovercraft, but the current doesn't let me go. I wrench my arms, but they don't move.

 

"Just relax a moment, Primrose," a woman says, coming up behind me before I can hyperventalate. "I need to insert your tracker." There's a prick on my arm, and "then the current releases me. I stagger away from the ladder as Cinna is retrieved from the roof. Once Cinna is aboard, the hovercraft lifts into the air. Cinna and I go into a room where breakfast is laid out on a table. I eat as much as I can, but I'm so nervous I'm queasy.

 

After about an hour, the windows of the hovercraft black out. Fifteen minutes later, we land under the arena.

 

Capitol attendants lead Cinna and I through the catacombs to my launch room. Cinna studies everything along our route, as if he's never seen an arena's catacombs before.

 

I clean my teeth, trying hard not to think of how it might be three weeks before I clean my teeth again. I might never clean my teeth again.

 

I start shaking in the shower, and it doesn't stop.

 

Once I'm clean, Cinna unwraps my uniform for the arena and helps me dress. White undergarments; a blue jumpsuit of some light, stretchy material that covers me from neck to ankle; a wide, padded belt covered in shiny purple plastic; and light nylon shoes with rubber soles.

 

"This isn't thermal," Cinna says, rubbing the thin material of my sleeve between his fingers. "It won't do much to protect you from the cold or water. It might offer sun protection, if it's been treated."

 

Maybe I was wrong about the desert being unpopular.

 

I am trembling so hard the whole room is vibrating. My breath is coming in short, quick gasps.

 

"Here," Cinna pulls something from his pocket and unwraps it. "Your token." It's a round pin, like Katniss's, but it's solid gold and heavy in my hand. Flames are etched around the rim, and in the center is a phoenix of tiny red, orange, yellow, and white gems, with sparks of blue at the tips of its wings and its one, visible eye.

 

"Do you like it?"

 

"I l-love it," I whisper. My teeth are chattering now. "Thank you."

 

He pins it to the front of my jumpsuit.

 

We sit. I take tiny sips from a glass of water, while Cinna holds one of my hands tightly in his.

 

At last, a calm, female voice tells me to prepare for the launch.

 

Cinna hugs me tightly and whispers in my ear, "You're going to get home, Prim. You're going to be fine."

 

I don't know what to say. How can he sound so sure?

 

Cinna walks me over to a plate in the ground. I step onto it, but I continue to clutch his hand.

 

"Remember," Cinna says. "Run. Find water. You can do this." He bends down and kisses my forehead.

 

Then a glass cylinder descends around me, forcing me to let him go. He tucks a finger under his chin, telling me to hold my head high, to be strong, to stay alive.

 

The plate rises into darkness. I draw short, sharp gasps of air through my mouth as I am lifted through the darkness and into the light of the arena. I am dazzled by the sunlight and pressed by sudden heat.

 

"Ladies and gentlemen!" cries the voice of the legendary Hunger Games announcer, Claudius Templesmith. "Let the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games begin! May the odds be ever in your favor!"

 

I have sixty seconds. I start counting down in my head. I whip my head from side to side. The sky is pink, and my plate is in the middle of turquoise water. It laps over the edges of my metal plate. I imagine Katniss, sitting in the control room with Peeta and Haymitch, watching me, but I shake off the thought. How much time do I have left? Forty-five seconds? Thirty? I lost count.

 

The Cornucopia is dead ahead of me on a large island. Maybe forty yards away. There's a strip of sand directly to my right, connecting the Cornucopia island to a beach. There's another strip to my left, and one other tribute between me and that strip of sand—it's Aspen, the boy from 11. We seem to be suspended in a perfect circle in the water around the Cornucopia, and the beach is a perfect ring around the water. So there must be twelve strips of sand. I scan what I can see of the beach, but I see no streams going into the water. The beach rises from the water and then is replaced by greenery. That's where I want to go.

 

I am facing the mouth of the Cornucopia. I see crates and bundles inside, other supplies piled and scattered around it. There's a small backpack at the end of the strip of sand to my right. But no. There's no way I can survive the bloodbath.

 

"Ten," Claudius Templesmith says. "Nine. Eight."

 

I'm going to run. Run in the direction the tail is pointing. I'll have to get around the Cornucopia.

 

Get to the strip of sand to my right, run to the beach, and run around the Cornucopia that way. That should keep me clear of the bloodbath.

 

"Seven. Six. Five. Four."

 

I slide my left foot in front of my right, clasp my hands over my head, and lean forward. Katniss taught us how to swim the day we went to the lake. She taught us to dive too. How many of the tributes can swim? Are the odds, for once, in my favor?

 

"Three. Two. One."

 

I suck in a huge breath as the horn goes off. Then I dive into the turquoise water.

 

My dive is perfect. I slice into the water. It is not cold, like I expected, but warm. And no sooner have I gone under then the belt around my waist hoists me up, and I am buoyed back to the surface. Something in the belt must keep us afloat. I strike out for the strip of sand to my right.

 

"Prim, down!" a girl shouts. Ivy?

 

I look up, just in time to see Ebony, already at the Cornucopia with a loaded bow in hand, aiming at me. I force my head under the water and swim faster, but in my haste, I accidentally swallow a mouthful of water.

 

It's saltwater.

 

My heart races as I make a split second decision. If I can't count on this water, I need something.

 

My fingers grind through the sand, and I scramble up and run for the Cornucopia.

 

Ebony smiles at me and lifts the bow over her head with both hands. I freeze, my hand already outstretched for that small backpack. What is she doing? Why isn't she shooting at me? In fact, why is she even using the bow? She was terrible at it in training.

 

Ebony snaps the bow in half.

 

Oh.

 

My stomach drops. I scan the piles of supplies, but I see no other bow. Without that bow, we're in big trouble.

 

Ebony starts towards me. I scoop up the backpack and a loaf of bread, then turn and hurtle down the strip of sand to the beach. I glance back over my shoulder once, but Ebony is not chasing me. She has easier targets right now, and it's not a good story if she kills me right away.

 

I dash up the beach. The sand gives beneath my shoes. I am almost at the trees when I stumble and fall, dropping the bread and scraping the heels of my hands in the gritty sand. But I push myself to my feet, grab the bread again, and run into the trees.


End file.
